THE CONSPIRACY OF FANATICISM.

EVERYWHERE liberty is surrounded by open or secret enemies. She is compelled to be forever on the watch, and the condition of her exist ence is eternal vigilance. If she falls asleep but for a brief period, she will awake like Gulliver, bound to the earth by invisible ligaments. Ambition and avarice, the love of power, and the love of gold, are perpetually prepared to assail her slumbers; hypocrisy and pretence lying in wait to practice their deceptions; and the selfish is always warring against the social principle. Those who flatter themselves that by establishing free institutions, they have perpetuated the blessings of freedom, and that the first struggle once over, there is no longer any necessity for exertion to preserve what they have acquired, will find at last, that though the outward forms of liberty may remain, the substance has gradually been frittered away, leaving nothing but the shadow behind. The Temple of Freedom is, in this respect, like all material fabrics-subjected to the dilapidations of time; and if the occupants are not careful to watch its decay, and repair its damages, it will become at length a weather-beaten, rickety ruin, incapable of affording shelter or protection from the inroads of man, or the elements of nature.

The people of the United States having-at the cost of long-suffering and many sacrifices-won for themselves the inestimable privilege of self-government, promptly set about availing themselves of their newlyacquired freedom, and sought to perpetuate it by the adoption of a Constitution, securing to all citizens the blessings of liberty and equality. For this purpose they deputed their wisest and most virtuous citizensmen who had been the most efficient instruments in the attainment of independence-to form a written bond of union, specific in its principles, plain in its provisions, simple in its words, and level with the comprehension of every man of ordinary intellect, that all might distinctly know their rights and their duties, as at one and the same time, sovereigns and citizens. This being done, they adopted it as their guardian and guaranty,

of their own free will, and set themselves down under their own vine, and their own fig tree, to enjoy in peace what they had won by war, and secured by wisdom. They believed they had done all that was neces sary, and that their work would last for ages.

This Constitution went quietly into operation, and, under its fostering influence, the people of the United States have distanced all their contemporaries, and enjoyed a degree of happiness and prosperity without a parallel in the history of mankind. They have increased and multiplied seven-fold; they have expanded over a territory twice greater than that of Rome, when called the mistress of the world; and wherever they have gone, they carried with them the blessings of Christianity, civilization and liberty. One might suppose a bond of union, which had led to such glorious and beneficent results, would, ere this, have been consecrated by time to eternity; that it would have become so sacred and venerable in the eyes of all who shared in this unparalleled prosperity, that no citizen of the United States would dare to lift his hand or his voice against it, or bear even to listen to any blasphemous demonstrations upon that which has showered down so many blessings on their heads. One might hope, at least, that the names appended to that instrument would have saved it from being denounced, as it has been, repeatedly and openly, of late years, by fanaticism, as a gross violation of the law of God and the rights of nature."

At their head stands the name of Washington-a man now universally recognized by every Christian people and every sect, as the purest, most perfect example of public and private virtue presented by any age or nation—a man hailed with one voice and one heart by twenty millions of freemen, by the highest and noblest of all titles-that of Father of his Country. Among them is Franklin, whose wisdom and philanthropy appear in every page of his writings, and every action of his life. There, too, we find Madison the Sage, and Hamilton the Cicero, of his country; Rutledge and Pinckney of the South; and Dayton, Livingston, Sherman, Gorham, Langdon, and many other illustrious citizens from the North and the South, whose names still ring in the echoes of their country, and throb in the hearts of their countrymen. All these men thus selected from the great mass, with special reference to their talents, integrity, and patriotism whose names are identified with all that is sacred and venerable in our past history, it seems, set their hands and seals to an instrument denounced by the fanatical abolitionists as a gross violation of the law of God, and the rights of nature. So say William Lloyd Garrison, and Abby Folsom; and so say Senators Seward and Hale; and so says Joshua Giddings- men who, if their most impudent claims to wisdom and virtue were conceded, are not worthy to tie the shoe-strings of a Washington, a Madison, and a Franklin. Yet such are the insects that buzz, and the reptiles that hiss their venom in the face of the Constitution and its framers.

It might have been rationally anticipated, that having established the edifice of freedom on the great basis of liberty and equality, and tasted the blessings it has scattered so profusely on our heads, we had done and experienced all that was necessary to secure it at least from internal enemies, and perpetuate, through ages, that Constitution, which is the ark of our safety. But there are two great enemies to human freedomking-craft and priest-craft. These are always at work, in some way or

other, undermining or openly assailing the liberty of thought and action, and under pretence of curbing the steed, putting the bit in his mouth, the saddle on his back, and riding him till he either breaks down, or tosses them over his head. Sometimes they are engaged in the struggle which shall ride foremost, and then the people stand some chance of escaping being trodden down; and sometimes, indeed generally, they combine together, and hunt in couples, when they are sure to be irresistible. Against church and state, united, there is no adequate defence; since, while one appeals to the hopes and fears of mankind hereafter, the other applies them to the present state of existence, in the shape of temporal rewards and punishments. Betwixt the two there is no escape; the mind and the body are equally enslaved. The chain is forged by one, and riveted by the other.

The American Revolution shook the thrones of kings to the centre, and they are now no longer supported by opinion, but force. The Divine right of kings, and the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, have become obsolete as maxims of state-that slavish devotion to despots, which was disguised under the name of loyalty, has been superseded by the more free and manly principle of patriotism; and what was before prostituted to thrones, is now devoted to our country. Thus, the foundations of despotic power have been gradually undermined, and it has been necessary to seek new props to sustain the rocking fabric. The monarchs of Europe have accordingly, one and all, become models of piety, and sought the support of the gown and the bayonet, to enable them to quell the rising spirit of liberty. Immediately on the downfall of Napoleon, they formed a conspiracy against the freedom of mankind, called it "The Holy Alliance," and violated the rights of almost every state of Europe. "In the name of the Most Holy and undivided Trinity," they parceled out portions of the people, as the Spaniards did the Indians of South America into Encomenderos, and placed them under what masters they pleased; they violated the territorial rights of one State, to bestow what was wrested from it on another, and outraged every national feeling, all in the name of "The Most Holy and undivided Trinity." Never were there such pious sovereigns, so zealous in the cause of religion; and never were human rights more grossly assailed under its holy sanction.

The cloak of hypocrisy proved so succcessful in concealing the encroachments of tyranny, that it has ever since been worn. Every effort has been made, and is still making, to render liberty and infidelity inseparable, and despotism synonymous with piety. The zeal of the oppressor for the Church is only equalled by his oppressions of the people; and the most pious of all monarchs is he who least studies the happiness of his subjects. What cannot now be attained by open violence or political craft, is sought to be gained by religious hypocrisy ; and what the State wants in strength, it borrows from the Church, which in return is remunerated by royal bounty and subserviency. Thus they play into the hands of each other; and thus, ecclesiastical ambition has been awakened to a perception of the possibility of once more re-viving those ages of darkness, when the dogmas of a priest superseded

* See Declaration of the Holy Alliance.