In a statement of grievances drawn up by a Grand Jury at a late county Assize in Pensilvania, it is complained that improper persons are put into the commission of the peace, and of the improper conduct of such in their magistracy: it also contains a strong remonstrance against the practice in prisons of putting the tried and untried culprits together: the bringing before the Grand Jury causes of a petty nature, and which therefore should have been tried in inferior courts, is also objected to.

The militia laws here bear hard upon the Foreigner, towards whom they are a vexatious tax. A residence in the country of, I believe, only six months renders him liable to be called out, and enrolled, or to pay a fine for absence; yet were a war to take place with the government to which an enrolled stranger is subject, he is sent up the country, instead of accepting of his military services; as it happened to the English who were resident here during the last war, to the great detriment of their affairs. The foreigner of course generally submits to pay the fine rather than be [174] subject to the demand of a military duty so unjust towards him; but that the practice of procuring substitutes, should be gaining ground among the citizens themselves, proves pretty clearly a falling off from the republican spirit. I have somewhere met with the remark that the Athenians were so wholly devoted to public life that they neglected the private virtues: the moderns on the contrary, and the remark may be applicable equally elsewhere as here, may be said to neglect their public interests in a constant attention to their private affairs; when this is the case, parties may hold intemperate language, journalists may snarl at each other, but all will not preserve the liberties of a people who have ceased to be true to themselves, when, from whatever cause, they shall hold back from their public duties, more especially those which are military; they then soon sink into effeminacy, lose that manliness of character which such exercises would give them, and becoming indifferent to all else but sordid gain, let their liberties sooner or later become the sacrifice to despotism. A militia may not go through its evolutions so quick and exact as a standing army—the latter is also a fine spectacle on a field-day, when the sun shines—it is likewise, it must be confessed, very enticing to indolence to be able to sit at home and nurse "its dainty [175] sympathies" while the army is abroad fighting its battles; but the Republic that would long preserve its freedom, that would truly enjoy the shade of its own vine and fig-tree, must keep the sword belted to its own side; must know how to use it, and submit with chearfulness and energy to its military duties. A standing army and disarmed population is the awful lever wherewith despotism and crooked policy have everywhere overturned the temple of liberty.

But whither is fancy leading me to wander? forgetful that I am where true liberty is unknown, or where the Goddess has only deigned to shed the rays of her intelligence on the favoured head of a Washington, a Franklin and a few others; while a spirit totally irreconcileable with the noble, disinterested, high minded, true republican pervades each bosom—money—gain—sordid gain is the predominant, almost the sole passion; scarcely leaving room for vanity; which shews itself not only in a firm belief and modest assertion that they alone among the nations of the earth hold the palm in Arts, Arms, and Science, but also in the important object of decorating the person. Reader—know, that the tailor, hatter, bootmaker, here give to our modern Republican his rank; and by the cut of his habiliments is known the circle in which he moves, and in which he [176] must continue to move. As unbending an order of aristocracy exists here as in any old court of Europe; and if an unfortunate individual is known ever to have appeared in an inferior circle, the ostracism banishes him for ever from the double refined society of this upper order of store keepers.

January 31st, 1820. Went last evening to attend service at the African Church: a charity sermon was preached and the whole very decently conducted. Contemplating however the sable countenances around us, the observation that the black forms a grade just below the white again occurred; 'tis true the former seems capable of all the common mental exertions, so nearly equal with the white man that it must be confessed he treads close upon his heels, yet notwithstanding, perhaps the result of a close examination and comparison of their mental faculties might shew as much difference between them as may be observed in the features of the countenance. On whichever side the truth of the question may lie, the general opinion in those States which have formally and publicly called the men of colour "Men and Brothers" is pretty clearly shewn in various ways—separate churches—civil disabilities, besides such common advertisements in the daily papers as the following; which I copy from the Aurora[61] of Friday, 25th March, 1820:—

[177] BAKER'S
EXCHANGE AND INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE

For SALE:—A black girl 20 years old, and 8 to serve.
Ditto 17 and 11 ditto.
Ditto 13 and 15 ditto, from the country.
Ditto 18 and 10 ditto.
Ditto 13 and 15 ditto.
A black boy 16 and 15 ditto, &c. &c.
To BIND:—White boys 11, 12, 13, &c. years of age.
White girls 8, 11, 12, &c.

Thus in free Pensilvania are blacks positively sold for a limited period, and though the law does not allow the purchaser the power of life and death over this sort of slave, yet to all other intents and purposes he is in as complete subjection as any slave in Virginia or Kentucky.

We have lately attended service at the churches of the Anabaptists, the Swedenborgians, &c.—Contemplating the various sects of religion in the United States, men will be pleased or otherwise, according to their private sentiments, to see the people on a Sunday quietly moving to the places of worship belonging to their several persuasions, without the least symptom of disrespect or rancorous spirit towards each other; thus forming an exception to the rest of the globe.—Whether such a state of religion will long continue, or whether, professing the same end (happiness hereafter,) [178] they may at length unite in the same means, one form of religion, time only will demonstrate: there are indeed people who seem to be of opinion that it will end in no religion at all; and I must confess thus much, that though theoretically it is certainly pleasing to contemplate religion free from state trammels, and each man walking before his God as his unbiassed conscience shall dictate, yet, as religion ought to influence men's conduct in the world, and "a tree is known by its fruit," it would be satisfactory to perceive, as the result of such religious liberty, more probity in the every day dealings between man and man than I have witnessed in the United States. While they talk of the moral and religious principle; of true liberty, honesty, &c. their actions belie their words, and make them appear a nation of unprincipled atheists; by the bye, a description of people perhaps more general over the world than we might be inclined to allow; people, who outwardly profess belief in a Creator and future Judge of our actions, yet whose daily acts contradict their professions. But to return to America, where integrity is at so low an ebb at present, that the nearest relative or friend can scarcely be safely trusted. One instance of baseness and ingratitude, among the many, I will relate. A man some time ago became insolvent—retired for the [179] usual period of five or six weeks, during which time he obtained signatures of release from his creditors, and came out whitewashed: one would naturally suppose that at least towards these men he would feel a debt of gratitude as well as of money due, and he had soon an opportunity of shewing it; for one of them, to whom he had been most indebted, in his turn got into difficulties,—and what followed—the scoundrel seized the occasion by the help of chicanery to turn his former creditor into the street and sold up his goods! Can either a religious or moral principle prevail where such things are commonly perpetrated?—Can the laws be good?—Can the government be efficient? Can a country last where such things pass as clever strokes of practice, and the most successful swindler is praised as the smartest fellow?

"Such things are;" and while they are, they furnish ground for such philippics as the following; which I will insert, not because any calm unprejudiced person or one not writing for preferment can agree with the pen of gall, but in the hope that America aroused at such anathemas, may exert her better self, give vigour to her laws, and blot out these foul deeds from the page of her history. Speaking of the principle of honour, the writer expresses himself thus:—"Honour alone [180] will indeed never make a great nation, but it will always preserve it from dwindling down into thorough contempt. It has done much more for France than ever virtue did. Without this semi-heroic principle she would have been detestable indeed. I say not that she was ever anything very desirable to boast of with it. America in this respect stands insulated from all the world. She has neither a spark of true magnanimity about her, nor any grace or colouring of it. She is equally destitute of honesty and honour, of substance and semblance. She set off without an established religion, and has now pretty well prepared herself for needing none."

In another place he writes thus, "there is no saying what this same America may turn out in the lapse of ages, or how far that unprincipled Oligarchy may extend her growing plagues into futurity, which, at present, exhibits the young serpents crawling out of their beds of venom in every direction where the heavens may smile, or the air freshly blow upon them, &c."[62]