CHAP. II.] PEACE ASSOCIATION. 29 



the policy of annually reading out to the assembled multitude the 

 celebrated &quot; Declaration,&quot; setting forth the injuries inflicted by 

 Great Britain, her usurpations previous to the year 1776, &quot;her 

 design to reduce the Americans to a state of absolute dependence 

 by quartering armed troops upon the people refusing to make 

 the judges independent of the crown imposing taxes without 

 consent of the colonies depriving them of trial by jury some 

 times suspending their legislatures waging war against the 

 colonies, arid transporting to their shores large armies of foreign 

 mercenaries to complete the work of death, desolation, and 

 tyranny already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy 

 scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages exciting domestic 

 insurrections bringing on the inhabitants of the frontiers the 

 merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is the 

 destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions,&quot; &c., &c. 



All this recital may have been expedient when the great 

 struggle for liberty and national existence was still pending ; but 

 what effect can it have now, but to keep alive bad feelings, and 

 perpetuate the memory of what should nearly be forgotten ? In 

 many of the newer States the majority of the entire population 

 have either themselves come out from the British Isles as new 

 settlers, or are the children or grandchildren of men who emi 

 grated since the &quot; Declaration&quot; was drawn up. If, therefore, 

 they pour out in schools, or at Fourth-of-July meetings, declama 

 tory and warlike speeches against the English oppressors of 

 America, their words are uttered by parricidal lips, for they are 

 the hereditary representatives, not of the aggrieved party, but of 

 the aggressors. 



To many the Peace Associations appear to aim at objects as 

 Utopian and hopeless as did the Temperance Societies to the 

 generation which is now passing away. The cessation of war 

 seems as unattainable as did the total abstinence from intoxicating 

 liquors. But we have seen a great moral reform brought about, 

 in many populous districts, mainly by combined efforts of well- 

 organized societies to discourage intemperance, and we may hope 

 that the hostilities of civilized nations may be mitigated at least 

 by similar exertions. &quot; Iri the harbor of Boston,&quot; says Mr. 



