Crisis Is The Rallying Cry Of The

Is There No Virtue Among Us? If There Be Not, We Are In A Wretched Situation. No Theoretical Checks-no Form Of Government Can Render Us Secure. To Suppose That Any Form Of Government Will Secure Liberty Or Happiness Without Any Virtue In The People, Is A Chimerical Idea, If There Be Sufficient Virtue And Intelligence In The Community, It Will Be Exercised In The Selection Of These Men. So That We Do Not Depend On Their Virtue, Or Put Confidence In Our Rulers, But In The People Who Are To Choose Them.

The Eyes Of The World Being Thus On Our Country, It Is Put The More On Its Good Behavior, And Under The Greater Obligation Also, To Do Justice To The Tree Of Liberty By An Exhibition Of The Fine Fruits We Gather From It.

Since It Is Impossible For The People Spontaneously And Universally, To Move In Concert Towards Their Object; And It Is Therefore Essential, That Such Changes Be Instituted By Some Informal And Unauthorized Propositions, Made By Some Patriotic And Respectable Citizen Or Number Of Citizens.

May It Not Be Asked Of Every Intelligent Friend To The Liberties Of His Country, Whether The Power Exercised In Such An Act As This Ought Not To Produce Great And Universal Alarm? Whether A Rigid Execution Of Such An Act, In Time Past, Would Not Have Repressed That Information And Communication Among The People Which Is Indispensable To The Just Exercise Of Their Electoral Rights? And Whether Such An Act, If Made Perpetual, And Enforced With Rigor, Would Not, In Time To Come, Either Destroy Our Free System Of Government, Or Prepare A Convulsion That Might Prove Equally Fatal To It?

All Power In Human Hands Is Liable To Be Abused.