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of Independence which is calculated to make them; and it really seems potential for nothing else.[1] The sophism, "sovereign people"!! do those who use it, or those who hear it, understand the value of the idea communicated by the expression? If the people are sovereign, who are the subjects? Now and then, a specimen of a sovereign without subjects has appeared, who was not a lunatic; but the station is not one to be coveted, or one to which a sane man would commend others, by figure of speech or otherwise. If it be replied that the subjects of a sovereign people are the rulers, then the meaning of the sophisms comes to this, the rulers are the ruled. This is all we can find when we search for the idea in the expression, "sovereign people;" a confusion of words of no use to same people, but as evidence, that those who use it, and those who tolerate its use, are afflicted with the same melancholy confusion of ideas, or total destitution of them, which the words themselves exhibit. Because the people of our State, are permitted to choose their rulers, and thus indirectly assist in making the laws that are to govern; it by no more means follows that they are sovereign, than because a thing shines, it is of course gold.
On sophisms like these, and those recited from the Declaration of Independence, and partaking of their peculiar characteristics, is founded in part our national literature. The attempts of our writers, to repel the scoffs such a literature is calculated to attract, amounts to nothing but a provocation of more. When the advantage to be gained, by this ostrich policy of shutting our eyes to our own infirmities, comes to be appreciated before it is too late to pursue another; the advantages to be gained in fortifying a refuge of lies, by a stockade of falsehoods, will be discovered in season to estimate its worth. But until that era comes—until the full time arrives, when boasting communicates strength, and vain glory increases renown, we cannot rationally expect to increase our honor by multiplying the deeds that provoke contempt.
National honor must consist in the good opinion entertained of us by other nations, not in a lofty opinion entertained of ourselves. If we have hitherto failed to create that opinion abroad; shall we succeed in creating it by a repetition of the acts that have all along failed to do it? Because the big guns of the chivalry are adequate to knock this continent into a roar of laugh-
- ↑ Note E.
