Transcription

  It is because habit, which is nature to an enlightened people, and is more, is necessity to an ignorant one, has not acquired its ordinary authority over the mind. We have been accustomed to distinct, independent governments: We have not been used to think nationally—to consider ourselves as an indivisible whole: Other nations reverence the antiquity of their institutions—even those which are oppressive are borne without refining, and almost without pain, because they are used to bear them: The neck, grown callous, is no longer galled with the yoke. Antiquity and state craft have involved the powers and principles of government in mystery. The veneration of the public is heightened by obscurity, and tho a magistrate, who should usurp power, would probably be ruined, yet opposition to lawful authority would strike the people with horror.
  In this country things are on a different footing. We have seen the beginning of our government. We have demolished one, and set up another, and we think without terror of the process. It has neither antiquity, nor mystery. Instead of