HKB
nature and society. I did not mention the stings of conscience, but the authors of public distress ought to remember that there is a world where conscience will not sleep.
Is it now at length time to consider. The great end for which your infatuation was permitted is now become complete. The whole union has seen and fears, and while history gives true information, no other people will ever repeat the studied process of fraud. You may again shew the distorted features of injustice, but never in more lively colors, or by more able hands than has been done already. As virtue and good government has derived all possible advantage from your experiment, and every other state thanks you for putting their own rogues and fools out of countenance, begin to have mercy on yourselves. You may not expect to exist in this course any longer than is necessary for public good; and there is no need that such a kind of warning as you set before us should be eternal. Secure as you may feel in prosecuting what all the rest of mankind condemn, the hour of your political revolution is at hand. The cause is within to yourselves, and needs but the permission of your neighbors to take its full effect. Every moral and social law calls for a review, and a volume of penal statutes cannot prevent it. They are in the first instance nullified by injustice, and five years hence not a man in your territories will presume their vindication. Passion and obstinacy, which were called in to aid injustice, have had their reign, and can support you no longer. By a change of policy give us evidence that you are returned to manhood and honour. The inventors of such councils can never be forgiven in this world, but the people at large who acted by their guidance may break from the connection and restore themselves to virtue.
There are among you legislators eminent, through the union for their wisdom and integrity. Penetrated with grief and astonishment they stand in silence, waiting the return of your reason. They are the only men who can remove the impassable gulph that is between you and the rest of mankind. In your situation there must be some sacrifice. It is required by the necessity of the case, and for the dignity of government. You have guilty victims enough for whom even benevolence will not plead; let them make the atonement and save your state. The large body of a people are rarely guilty of any crime greater than indiscretion, in following those who have no qualification to lead but an unblushing assurance infraud. Acknowledge the indiscretion, and leave those whom you have followed into the quicksands of death to the infamy prepared for them, and from which they cannot be reserved. Your situation admits no compounding of opposite systems, or halving with justice, but to make the cure there must be an entire change of measures. The Creator of nature and its laws made justice as necessary for nations as for individuals, and this necessity hath been sealed by the fate of all obstinate offenders. If you will not hear your own groans, nor feel the pangs of your own torture, it must continue until removed by a political annihilation. Such as do not pity themselves cannot be long be pitied.
Determined that our feelings shall be no longer wounded by any thing to which despair may lead you, with philosophic coolness we wait to continue our speculations on the event.
A LANDHOLDER.
The Landholder, XIII.
The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1209)
MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1788.