Noah Webster - A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings

It is time for the Americans to change their usual route, and travel thro a country which they never think of, or think beneeth their notice: I mean the United States.

While these States were a part of the British Empire, our interest, our feelings, were those of Englishmen; our dependence led us to respect and imitate their manners, and to look up to them for our opinions. We little thought of any national interest in America; and while our commerce and governments were in the hands of our parent country, and we had no common interest, we little thought of improving our acquaintance with each other, or of removing prejudices, and reconciling the discordant feelings of the inhabitants of different Provinces. But independence and union render it necessary that the citizens of different States should know each others characters and circumstances; that all jealousies should be removed; that mutual respect and confidence should succeed, and a harmony of views and interests be cultivated by a friendly intercourse.

A tour thro the United States ought now to be considered as a necessary part of a liberal education. Instead of sending young gentlemen to Europe to view curiosities and learn vices and follies, let them spend twelve or eighteen months in examining the local situation of the different States; the rivers, the soil, the population, the improvements and commercial advantages of the whole; with an attention to the spirit and manners of the inhabitants, their laws, local customs and institutions. Such a tour should at least precede a tour to Europe; for nothing can be more ridiculous than a man travelling in a foreign country for information, when he can give no account of his own. When, therefore, young gentlemen have finished an academic education, let them travel thro America, and afterwards to Europe, if their time and fortunes will permit. But if they cannot make a tour thro both, that in America is certainly to be preferred; for the people of America, with all their information, are yet extremely ignorant of the geography, policy and manners of their neighbouring States. Except a few gentlemen whose public employments in the army and in Congress, have extended their knowlege of America, the people in this country, even of the higher classes, have not so correct information respecting the United States, as they have respecting England or France. Such ignorance is not only disgraceful, but is materially prejudicial to our political friendship and federal operations.

Americans, unshackle your minds, and act like independent beings. You have been children long enough, subject to the control, and subservient to the interest of a haughty parent. You have now an interest of your own to augment and defend: You have an empire to raise and support by your exertions, and a national character to establish and extend by your wisdom and virtues. To effect these great objects, it is necessary to frame a liberal plan of policy, and build it on a broad system of education. Before this system can be formed and embraced, the Americans must believe , and act from the belief, that it is dishonorable to waste life in mimicking the follies of other nations and basking in the sunshine of foreign glory.

NEW YORK, 1788.

All mankind are, by nature, free, and have a right to enjoy life, liberty and property.

One person has no right to take from another his life, health, peace, or good name; to take away or lessen his freedom of thinking and acting, or to injure his estate in the smallest degree.

A collection of individuals forms a society ; and every society must have government , to prevent one man from hurting another, and to punish such as commit crimes. Every person's safety requires that he should submit to be governed; for if one man may do harm without suffering punishment, every man has the same right, and no person can be safe.

It is necessary therefore that there should be laws to control every man. Laws should be made by consent or concurrence of the greatest part of the society.

The whole body of people in society is the sovereign power or state; which is called, the body politic. Every man forms a part of this state, and so has a share in the sovereignty; at the same time, as an individual, he is a subject of the state.

When a society is large, the whole state cannot meet together for the purpose of making laws; the people therefore agree to appoint deputies, or representativs, to act for them. When these agents are chosen and met together, they represent the whole state, and act as the sovereign power. The people resign their own authority to their representativs; the acts of these deputies are in effect the acts of the people; and the people have no right to refuse obedience.

It is as wrong to refuse obedience to the laws made by our representativs , as it would be to break laws made by ourselves . If a law is bad and produces general harm, the people may appoint new deputies to repeal it; but while it is a law, it is the act and will of the sovereign power, and ought to be obeyed.

The people in free governments, make their own laws by agents or representativs, and appoint the executiv officers. An executiv officer is armed with the authority of the whole state and cannot be resisted. He cannot do wrong, unless he goes beyond the bounds of the laws.

An executiv officer can hardly be too arbitrary; for if the laws are good, they should be strictly executed and religiously obeyed: If they are bad, the people can alter or repeal them; or if the officer goes beyond his powers, he is accountable to those who appoint him. A neglect of good and wholesome laws is the bane of society.

Judges and all executiv officers should be made as much as possible, independent of the will of the people at large. They should be chosen by the representativs of the people and answerable to them only: For if they are elected by the people, they are apt to be swayed by fear and affection; they may dispense with the laws, to favor their friends, or secure their office. Besides, their election is apt to occasion party spirit, cabals, bribery and public disorder. These are great evils in a state, and defeat the purposes of government.

The people have a right to advise their representativs in certain cases, in which they may be well informed. But this right cannot often be exercised with propriety or safety: Nor should their instructions be binding on their representativs: For the people, most of whom live remote from each other, cannot always be acquainted with the general interest of the state; they cannot know all the reasons and arguments which may be offered for, or against a measure, by people in distant parts of the state; they cannot tell at home, how they themselves would think and act, in a general assembly of all the citizens.

In this situation, if the people of a certain district, bind their representativ to vote in a particular manner, they may bind him to do wrong . They make up their minds, upon a partial view of facts, and form a resolution, which they themselves, on a fair state of all the facts, in the general assembly, might see reasons to change. There have been instances, in which these binding, positiv instructions, have obliged a representativ to give his vote, contrary to the conviction of his own mind and what he thought the good of the state; consequently his vote was a violation of his oath.

But the opinions of the people should, if possible, be collected; for the general sense of a nation is commonly right. When people are well informed, their general opinion is perhaps always right. But they may be uninformed or misinformed and consequently their measures may be repugnant to their own interest. This is often the case, with particular districts of people; and hence the bad policy of giving binding instructions to representativs. The sense of a nation is collected by the opinions of people in particular districts; but as some of these opinions may be wrong, a representativ should be left with discretionary powers to act for the good of the state.