It is peculiar to the constitutions of the United Ame ricans, that they have recognised the law of nations as a part of the law of the land, while other countries have permitted it to suffer the most serious derogations from the hands of the municipal executive power. National expediency, susceptible as it is of every degree of inge nious pretence and perversion, has not been allowed, in the United States, to take the place of those accepted rules of political morality, which arc calculated to pre serve peace on earth and good-will among nations. Prin ces and rulers, as well as private men, are subject to the motions of conscience, and to the judgment of the Al mighty beyond the grave. If the highest temporal ad vantages are to be gained to a nation by the intentional destruction of those laws, which forbid the wanton sacri fice of the property and people ol neighbouring states for every light and transitory cause, for every bubble of imaginary honour, let the Americans continue to fore go the temptation. It cannot be laid to our charge that by contributing to annihilate: the law of public morals, we have run into each other the extremes of the civili zed and savage state, and made a Tophet of the terra qucous globe. We do not undertake to arraign the go vernments of other countries, for such is not at all the -object or design of this enquiry. It is only our desire to convince the uninformed, that the mixture of ingredi ents in our national composition, has not rendered the whole mass Of negative character, or produced ally other deplorable effect, deroggitory from the dignity of human nature, or contrary to the great plan of Divine Providence, who manifests in the free-will operations of his innumerable and variegated creatures, the stupen dous power of their sole creator.
If success has attended the endeavour to prove that the United Americans are the friends of religious liber ty, of humanity, and political morality ; it may be ream sonably expected that they have a conskerable o'hare of religious character ; for these are a part of its genuine elements.
It is necessary to remember in relation to individuals and communities, that profession, abroad or at home, is not the whole ol true religion ; and that however a Divine Judge may require the reality in each of his responsible creatures, the character of nations, on this subject, is really comparative. Barbarian plunderers, rejecting every good rule among men, must be deemed inferior to the several civilized nations. It will not be argued that we are as pious, as just, or as perfect as we ought to be. Nor shall we, in an unworthy spirit of self-righ teousness, attempt to exalt ourselves above any particu lar nation, much less do we claim, on this delicate and all important subject, merits superior to all others.
From the mutual charity of our religious societies, by which no one deprives the others of their rights in tem poral or spiritual affairs ; from the equity of our distri butions of the good things of this world, among all the children of our families, without distinction of ages or sex ; from the increased provision for the tender ob jects of conjugal affection, and for the venerable parents of our human lives ; from the principles of substantial equality on which our constitutions provide for the dis tribution of right to ourselves and to Aliens, to our coun try and to foreign nations, we hope and trust, that, as a people, we have shown no uncommon deficiency of re spect for the first member of the Divine command " Do justice." Torn and agitated by an eight years' war ;
left in a distracted condition by six years' absence of federative ligaments ; the unjust passions threatening to overwhelm us, or to render us an easy prey to some foreign destroyer, we rose, in the strength of the wis dom and virtue, which heaven had infused into our characters ; we rose as the friends of man to the great work of reforming the empire. In all our endeavours on that memorable occasion, to bring the vessel of the state into the port of safety, eternal justice was our polar star. Such do our constitutions prove to be the piety of cur politics—the true religion of our civil institutions. Prudence, Temperance, and Justice, adorn the face of those beloved codes, and are skilfully trans fused through their body and substance. Mercy too, as we have already shown, shines in the midst of them, with the mild radiance of the morning star ; and where justice and mercy are, there surely is our holy religion.
It is thus, as a nation, considering and ordaining, un der the favour of Divine Providence, for ourselves and our posterity, that we have provided a wholesome sue cedaneum—a glorious substitution for an established church.
The pomp, the luxury, and the extreme voluptuous ness of the church, before the coming of Jesus Christ, required his reforming power, and influence, and labours. The vain pomp and luxury and voluptuousness, with the anti-christian assumption of power, of the church in the sixteenth century, again demanded the effort of rv formation. The contest was fluctuating ; and those hu man reformers often turned their impassioned antis against each other. The victims, on both sides, in many countries, were caused to shed tears of blood, and were impiously devoted in this world to the flaming torments of the damned.* The world will consider, that such is not the religion of the united Americans. On the con trary, when they perceive, even in this clay of general light, that some countries, nay sonic churches, in Eu rope, still torture the body, sonic the conscience of man, they exclaim in deep astonishment and sorrow, God that the teachers of thy religion should ever want humanity!" The happy simplicity of the churches in America oc casions the ministers of religion not to he led into those fatal temptations, which have produced the necessity for the great reformations in various ages. It is a reflec tion favourable to man, that in proportion as vice is not to be observed in persons in conspicuous and influential situations, the body of the community is more virtuous. So far therefore as religion is attained by abstaining from many evils, the united Americans exhibit the cha racter.—Nor will this circumstance be found, on consid eration, of little importance, or of a negative quality ; for the presence of habitual vice excludes the possibility of the presence of genuine religion. Considering then the ministers of religion and the religious societies to be of moral habits, the circumstance is of great importance, connected with the other evidences of a religious cha racter. Morality too may be said to keep open the door for the entrance of religion, while immorality prevents its admission.