Count The Cost | Page 7

office seekers, exhibit in strong colors the depravity of human nature and teach us what dependence may justly be placed on pretensions and professions.
To inflame the passions and to create animosity, various subjects have been successively seized upon, and pressed into the service of the revolutionists--Every quarrel however trivial is noticed--every seed of discord however small is nourished to disseminate murmurs and to further the great object.-Various classes of the community are told, with apparent anxiety for their welfare, that they are oppressed, and that a new order of things must arise, or that they will be enslaved. New subjects are started as old ones cease to operate, and thus all that ingenuity and art, industry and perseverance, can devise or effect is accomplished. Thus, that numerous and respectably body of Christians called Episcopalians have been told, and repeatedly told, that the more numerous denomination were seeking to deprive them of their just and equal rights, and to subject them to the tyranny of an overbearing majority--These tales were reiterated till their authors found them useless from their folly and falsehood. At another time the Baptists are addressed by a set of men who denied the reality of any religion and the most earnest yearnings for their welfare. They tyranny of the Legislature was painted in horrid colors, and they were exhorted to lend their aid to vindicate the cause of the oppressed. Those who conscientiously believe that no taxes ought to be paid for the support of religion, and those who wish that religion might no more infest the residence of men, were addressed with considerations adapted to their respective cases. At one time men destitute of property are seduced by the alluring doctrine of universal suffrage--then the farmer is told that taxes are too high on land, and, with the same breath, the mechanic is sagely informed, that the poll tax should be repealed, and the burden fall back on the land holder.
Festivals under the pretence of honoring the election of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, and of extolling the wisdom of the purchase of Louisiana, but with a real design to blazen the fame of those who assume the character of friends of the people that they may the more readily destroy the most free and equitable Government in the world, are continually holden, and the discontented, the factious, the ambitious and the corrupt, are collected and flattered with declamations in the various shapes of prayers, sermons and orations. Thus a people enjoying the height of political prosperity are cajoled into a belief that men without virtue, without the restraints of the gospel, without a particle of real regard for their fellow men, are their best friends, and are anxiously laboring to promote their good. Let such remember, that when the Ethiopian shall change his skin, when the Leopard shall change his spots, and when bitter fountains shall send forth sweet water, then will those who flatter the people with their tongues, and deceive them with their lips seek their happiness. Such are some of the measures resorted to by those who have sworn in their wrath that Connecticut shall be revolutionized. Finding all these ineffectual, and that the good sence and virtue of Connecticut has hitherto opposed an inseparable barrier to all their plans, they now exclaim Connecticut has no Constitution. Such a gross absurdity could never have been promulgated till the mind was in some degree prepared, by being accustomed to misrepresentation. This was well known to Mr. Bishop, who has for years been in the habit of disregarding moral obligation. In the year 1789 this Orator pronounced several inflammatory invectives against the Constitution of the United States, to which he was a bitter enemy till he obtained an office under it worth three thousand dollars a year. At that time his language was, The Constitution of Connecticut is the best in the world--it has grown up with the people, and is fitted to their condition.--Now this consistent man who is endeavoring to gull the people that he may successfully tyrannize over them, avows that they are without a Constitution.
My fellow citizens, examine this head of clamor with candor, read the solemn declaration of Washington in the title page, attend to the following remarks, and then tell me if you do not perceive in this project, with the manner in which it is supported and attempted to be accomplished, enough of the revolutionary spirit of France, to excite the indignation of every real friend to the peace and happiness of Connecticut.
1. If there be no Constitution in Connecticut then your Huntingtons, your Trumbulls, your Shermans, your Wolcotts and your Davenports, with many other worthies, who were your defence in war, and your ornament in peace, and who are now sleeping with their fathers, were wicked