A Collection of State-papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America, and the Reception of Their Minister Plenipotentiary, by Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands : to Which is Prefixed, the Political Character of John Adams, Ambassador Plenipotentiary from the States of North America, to Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands ... Likewise, an Essay on Canon and Feudal
History
A Collection of State-papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America, and the Reception of Their Minister Plenipotentiary, by Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands : to Which is Prefixed, the Political Character of John Adams, Ambassador Plenipotentiary from the States of North America, to Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands ... Likewise, an Essay on Canon and Feudal
Law; Netherlands -- Foreign relations -- United States; United States -- Foreign relations -- Netherlands
Let the Bar proclaim, "the laws, the rights, the generous plan of
power," delivered down from remote antiquity; inform the world of the
mighty struggles, and numberless sacrifices, made by our ancestors, in
the defence of freedom.--Let it be known, that British liberties are not
the grants of princes or parliaments, but original rights, conditions of
original contracts, co-equal with prerogative, and co-eval with
government.--That many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed
on as maxims and established as preliminaries, even before a parliament
existed.--Let them search for the foundation of British laws and
government in the frame of human nature, in the constitution of the
intellectual and moral world.--There let us see, that truth, liberty,
justice, and benevolence, are its everlasting basis; and if these could
be removed, the superstructure is overthrown of course.--
Let the colleges join their harmony, in the same delightful
concert.--Let every declamation turn upon the beauty of liberty and
virtue, and the deformity, turpitude and malignity of slavery and
vice.--Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds
and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good
and demolishing the evil.--Let the dialogues and all the exercises
become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of
spreading and distributing, far and wide, the ideas of right and the
sensations of freedom.
In a word, let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a flowing.
The encroachments upon liberty, in the reigns of the first James and the
first Charles, by turning the general attention of learned men to
government, are said to have produced the greatest number of consummate
statesmen, which has ever been seen in any age, or nation. The Brooke's,
Hamden's, Falkland's, Vane's, Milton's, Nedham's, Harrington's,
Neville's, Sydney's, Locke's, are all said to have owed their eminence
in political knowledge, to the tyrannies of those reigns. The prospect,
now before us, in America, ought, in the same manner, to engage the
attention of every man of learning to matters of power and of right,
that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable
destruction.----_Nothing less than this seems to have been meditated for
us, by somebody or other in Great Britain._ There seems to be a direct
and formal design on foot, to enslave all America.--This however must
be done by degrees.----The first step that is intended seems to be an
entire subversion of the whole system of our Fathers, by the
introduction of the canon and feudal law, into America.----The canon and
feudal systems though greatly mutilated in England, are not yet
destroyed. Like the temples and palaces, in which the great contrivers
of them were once worshiped and inhabited, they exist in ruins; and much
of the domineering spirit of them still remains.--The designs and
labours of a certain society, to introduce the former of them into
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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