126 
never to be permanently surrendered by 
the constituents of a commonwealth, and 
with which no just and wise government 
will ever lightly or customarily interfere : 
and in this last sense [ am induced by 
strong conviction to disagree with Mr. 
Hall. As to the nature and extent of 
the grievance, we fully concur; on the 
remedy he proposes, we are wide apart: 
it would, in my opinion, draw with it 
consequences far worse than the disease. 
This gentleman proposes a law to compel 
2 proprietor to cut down his own unpro- 
ductive timber, and to plant two for 
every tree which shall be felled; and 
this, apparently, on the judgment of a 
public officer appointed ia each county 
for such service. 
Such advice leads to a most important 
question of general policy, on which, in 
my apprehension, “a majority of those 
patriots, whether of France cr Britain, 
making the highest pretensions to liberty, 
have, and dostill, entertain very erroneous 
ideas. Here, even the far-famed Tho- 
mas Paine stumbled, adopting the genuine 
principles of his antagonists, Far be it 
from me to jnstitute any Improper en- 
quiry into the principles or opinions of 
Mr. Hall, or to class him with any po- 
Jitical party, but every writer must ne- 
cessarily be answerable for the doctrines 
he promulgates, to the extent of their 
fair and obvious construction; and no 
real lover of truth will be offended at 
the investigation, or even contravention, 
of his positions, since such is the only 
mode in which truth itself can be elicited 
and preserved. 
Mr. Hall observes (No. 199, p. 410) 
“in every civilized country it is the bu- 
siness both of church and state, to pre- 
‘vent, by every means in their power, the 
great body of the people from indulging 
their propensities beyond what is proper.” 
In the next page he holds, that because 
government has the power of imposing 
taxes, such may be imposed with the 
view of moral restraint. He farther 
assumes, that “it is a maxim in laws as 
well as in religion and common sense, 
that a man is only the steward of the 
good things he possesses; and that if he 
raises more corn, cattle, or stock of any 
kind, on his estate, than serves for his 
own and family’s support, though he 
bas a right to sell, he has no right wan- 
tonly to destroyit. The same holds with 
regard to the trees on his estate,” 
First: with respect to ‘the business of 
church and state to use their power in 
coutrouling the propensities of the peo- 
i GT 
~ 
% 
On Cutting Down decaying Timber Trees ¢ [Sept. ty: 
ple,’ I believe: such control to be an 
error of the greatest magnitude in theory, 
and.that it has been attended with the 
most tremendous consequences In prac 
tice, from the earliest records of history, 
and that the superior felicity of modern 
times has resulted materially from the 
energies of the gradually increasing free- 
will of the people, and decreasing despo= 
tism of the civil government. ‘Ihe chief 
business of the government of a country, 
naturally a delegation of the people, is, 
or rather ought to be, to repress and 
punish aggression, more especially of the 
rich upen the poor; to atiminisier juss 
tice; to impose and ievy taxes; in fine, 
to do any act for the general benefit, 
which can safely be delegated without 
material infringement of individual li- 
berty. A! beyond this is tyranny; in an 
equal degree inimical to justice and good 
morals as to-freedom of action, which 
is essential to both. A government in- 
deed may effect much by example and 
Instruction; but moral restraint ought to 
be totally beyond its province, were it 
only because all governnients must ine- 
vitably consist of men endowed with 
the common passions, and lable to the 
common infirmities, of the buik of man. 
kind.. The free-agency alone of man 
must create and unfold his virtues— 
government can only punish his ageres- 
sions and crimes. 
Mr. Hall says very truly, that the 
Church has ever prevented the people 
from indulging their propensities beyond 
what is proper. Indeed, superstition in 
all countries has ever, on penalty of life, 
limb, and liberty, most fatally stifled that 
natural desire of free enquiry in the hu-- 
man mind, which, left to its own spon=- 
taneous action, would soon have deve- 
loped and risen above those gross and 
barbarous frauds, by which the majority 
of mankind, in every age, has been duped 
and enslaved. We owe to the blood- 
guilty craft of religious superstition, far 
more than to all other causes of human 
weakness and vice added together, that 
man has thought it an indispensable 
duty to hate his fellow, and to heap 
upon him all sorts of inflictions, even to 
tortures and death—that one nation has 
thought it meritorious to carry fire and 
sword and devastation into another, and 
even to extirpate its inhabitants from 
the face of the earth! and for what? -be- 
cause this individual, or this nation, 
does not believe as we do—Justice and 
mercy! believe as we do! as if belief, © 
independent of conviction, were in a 
man’s 
