formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and
with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social
compact. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to
honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the
name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to
promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This
is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave the bird of
night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect
only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look
boldly in the face of the sun.

Some who would persuade us that they have tender feelings for future
generations, while they are insensible to the happiness of the
present, are perpetually foreboding a train of dissensions under our
popular system. Such men's reasoning amounts to this: Give up all
that is valuable to Great Britain and then you will have no
inducements to quarrel among yourselves; or, suffer yourselves to be
chained down by your enemies that you may not be able to fight with
your friends.

This is an insult on your virtue as well as your common sense. Your
unanimity this day and through the course of the war is a decisive
refutation of such invidious predictions. Our enemies have already
had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the
justice and ardor of freedom and the wisdom and vigor of the most
absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be
uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, and
inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments
where every revolution in the ministry of a court produces one in
the State--such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that