Noah Webster - A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings

The heads of young people of both sexes are often turned by reading descriptions of splendid living, of coaches, of plays, and other amusements. Such descriptions excite a desire to enjoy the same pleasures. A fortune becomes the principal object of pursuit; fortunes are scarce in America, and not easily acquired; disappointment succeeds, and the youth who begins life with expecting to enjoy a coach, closes the prospect with a small living, procured by labor and economy.

Thus a wrong education, and a taste for pleasures which our fortune will not enable us to enjoy, often plunge the Americans into distress, or at least prevent early marriages. Too fond of show, of dress and expense, the sexes wish to please each other; they mistake the means, and both are disappointed.

Cicero was twenty eight years old when he left Italy to travel into Greece and Asia. "He did not stir abroad," says Dr. Middleton, "till he had completed his education at home; for nothing can be more pernicious to a nation, than the necessity of a foreign one."— Life of Cicero, vol. 1. p. 48.

Dr. Moore makes a remark precisely in point. Speaking of a foreign education, proposed by a certain Lord, who objected to the public schools in England, he says, "I have attended to his Lordship's objections, and after due consideration, and weighing every circumstance, I remain of opinion, that no country but Great Britain is proper for the education of a British subject, who proposes to pass his life in his own country. The most important point, in my mind, to be secured in the education of a young man of rank of our country, is to make him an Englishman; and this can be done no where so effectually as in England." See his View of Society and Manners , &c. vol. 1, page 197, where the reader will find many judicious remarks upon this subject. The following are too pertinent to be omitted.—"It is thought, that by an early foreign education, all ridiculous English prejudices, will be avoided. This may be true; but other prejudices, perhaps as ridiculous, and much more detrimental, will be formed. The first cannot be attended with many inconveniencies; the second may render the young people unhappy in their own country when they return, and disagreeable to their countrymen all the rest of their lives." These remarks, by a change of names are applicable to America.

Not that the English nation was originally in slavery; for the primitiv Saxons and Germans were free. But the military tenures, established by the Gothic conquests, depressed the people; so that under the rigor of the feudal system, about the date of Magna Charta, the King and Nobles held their tenants in extreme servitude. From this depression, the English have gradually emerged into ancient freedom.

The first convention of deputies in a state, is usually designed to direct the mode in which future legislatures shall be organized. This convention cannot abridge the powers of future legislatures, any further than they are abridged by the moral law, which forbids all wrong in general.

The nominal distinction of Convention and Legislature was probably copied from the English; but the American distinction goes farther, it implies, in common acceptation, a difference of power . This difference does not exist in G. Britain. The assembly of Lords and Commons which restored Charles II, and that which raised the Prince of Orange to the throne, were called Conventions , or parliamentary Conventions . But the difference between these Conventions and an ordinary Parliament, is merely a difference in the manner of assembling; a Convention being an assembly or meeting of Lords and Commons, on an emergency, without the King's writ, which is the regular constitutional mode of summoning them, and by custom necessary to render the meeting a Parliament . But the powers of this assembly, whether denominated a Convention or a Parliament , have ever been considered as coextensive and supreme. I would just remark further, that the impossibility of establishing perpetual, or even permanent forms of government, is proved already by the experience of two States in America. Pensylvania and Georgia, have suffered under bad Constitutions, till they are glad to go thro the process of calling a new Convention. After the new forms of government have been tried some time, the people will discover new defects, and must either call a third Convention, or let the governments go on without amendment, because their Legislatures, which ought to have supreme power, cannot make altertations.–[1789.]

This is the date of the first writs now extant, for summoning the Knights and Burgesses.

In Pensylvania, after the late choice of Delegates to Congress by the people, one of the Gentlemen sent his resignation to the President and Council, who refered it to the Legislature then sitting. This body, compozed of the servants of the people, I suppoze, solemnly resolved, that there was no power in the State which could accept the resignation. The resolv was grounded on the idea that the power of the people is paramount to that of the Legislature; whereas the people hav no power at all, except in choosing representativs. All Legislativ and Executiv powers are vested in their Representativs, in Councilor Assembly, and the Council should have accepted the resignation and issued a precept for another choice. Their compelling the man to serve was an act of tyranny.

This pernicious error subverts the whole foundation of government. It resembles the practice of some Gentlemen in the country, who hire a poor strolling vagabond to keep a school, and then let the children know that he is a mere servant . The consequence is, the children despise him and his rules, and a constant war is maintained between the master and his pupils. The boys think themselves more respectable than the master, and the master has the rod in his hand, which he never fails to exercise. A proper degree of respect for the man and his laws, would prevent a thousand hard knocks. This is government in miniature . Men are taught to believe that their rulers are their servants , and then are rewarded with a prison and a gallows for despising their laws.

"In a democracy there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by suffrage: In England, where the people do not debate in a collective body, but by representation, the exercise of this sovereignty consists in the choice of Representatives ." Blackstone's Com. b. 1. ch. 2. This is the sole power of the people in America.

The septennial act was judged the only guard against a Popish reign, and therefore highly popular.

Notes on Virginia, page 197. Lond. Edit. Query 13.

Contracts, where a Legislature is a party, are excepted.

Some jealous people ignorantly call the proposed Constitution of Federal Government, an aristocracy . If such men are honest, their honesty deserves pity: There is not a feature of true aristocracy in the Constitution; the whole frame of Government is a pure Representativ Republic.

Calvini Lexicon Juridicum.

See Laws of the Saxon Kings.

Such is the article, which excludes the clergy from a right to hold civil offices. The people, might, with the same propriety, have declared, that no merchants nor lawyers should be eligible to civil offices. It is a common opinion that the business of the clergy is wholly spiritual . Never was a grosser error. A part of their business is to inform the minds of people on all subjects, and correct their morals; so that they have a direct influence on government. At any rate they are subjects of law, and ought as freemen to be eligible to a seat in the Legislature; provided the people incline to choose them.