HISTGliY"6F VERMONT. -433 



triatjaj^ing business, ur>on the European system : 

 Bat they had no ideas of- the state of things in 

 America, or of a system in wiilch nature aiid 

 society had combined to produce and to pre- 

 ' serve freedom. What they called rebellion, was 

 'Only the tendency of nature and society towards 

 freedom, made more active, by their opposition. 

 Mistaking the cause, they perpetually mistook 

 in thf ir measures : And what could not have 

 happened from any other cause but total mis- 

 take, it was their singular ill fortune never to 

 ■Judge right, either through design, or by mis- 

 ''Itke* The result was the natural effect of 

 ■ things. It did not partake of the nature of mir- 

 acles, of the extravagant spirit of chivalry, or of 

 the madness of religious or political enthusiasm. 

 ,' It was nothing more than the natural effect, of 

 ''^natural Causes. Freedom, for a century and an 

 half, had been the constanc product and effect, 

 of the state of society in the British colonics : 

 And when the decisive triai was to be made, 

 this state of society produced its natural effect ; 

 "a firm, steady, unabating, and unceasing contest, 

 which could not admit of any other period, but 

 the total destruction^ or complete establishment 

 of freedom. 

 , No other cause but that v/hich first produced 

 /'.the freedom of America, will prove sufficient to 

 'support and preserve it. It is in the state of 

 '^jjlociety that civil freedom has its ori.^in, and 

 -"^'support. The effect can never be more pure or 

 'j)erfect, thnn the reuses from whence it arises ; 

 and all those causes terminate in the state and 

 Condition of the people. The form oi" govern* 

 " ment by which the public business is to he done? 



