Transcription

Scotch Highlanders, the people of the isles, the Welch, the wild Irish, and the English, the oppressed catholics, the persecuted Jacobites, the Dissenters and Episcopalians and surely more unfit to become one people than the citizens of the Southern and Northern States: Yet all these people are approximating, and it is a question whether in a course of time, not very remote, there will remain any traces of discrimination. That event is of the importance, as, in fact, with all the supposed diversity of interests and opinions, that kingdom is one of the most prosperous and best governed of any in the world. It is certain that it has been believed in that country, and many seemed to derive a malignant pleasure form the belief, that the people of America, tho independent, were so unfortunately circumstanced that they would not govern themselves. If we did not know that the passions and prejudices of men make them blind to the most obvious truths, we should wonder how Englishmen could be duped by an hypothesis which is so abundantly refuted by their own experience. If the Americans cannot preserve their national government, it is not because they are too unlike to assimilate, or that they want the acuteness and vigor of mind to perceive and establish the principles of a wise government.

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