treaties, and the like. As this power belongs only to Congress, they are the only sovereign power in the United States.

We commit a similar mistake in our ideas of the word independent. No individual State, as such, has any claim to independence; she is independent only in a union with her sister States in Congress.

To conform the principles, morals and manners of our citizens, to our republican forms of government, it is absolutely necessary that knowledge of every kind should be disseminated through every part of the United States.

For this purpose, let Congress, instead of laying out half a million of dollars in building a federal town, appropriate only a fourth of that sum in founding a federal university. In this university let every thing connected with government, such as history-the law of nature and nations-the civil law-the municipal laws of our country-and the principles of commerce-be taught by competent professors. Let masters be employed likewise to teach gunnery, fortification, and every thing connected with defensive and offensive war. Above all, let a professor of, what is called in the European universities, economy, be established in this federal seminary. His business should be to unfold the principles and practice of agriculture and manufactures of all kind, and to enable him to make his lectures more extensively useful, Congress should support a travelling correspondent for him, who should visit all the nations of Europe, and transmit to him, from time to time, all the discoveries and improvements that are made in agriculture and manufactures. To this seminary young men should be encouraged to repair, after completing their academical studies in the colleges of their respective States. The honors and offices of the United States should, after a while, be confined to persons who had imbibed federal and republican ideas in this university.

For the purpose of diffusing knowledge, as well as extending the living principle of government to every part of the United States-every State-citycounty-village-and township in the Union, should be tied together by means of the post-office. This is the true non-electric wire of government. It is the only means of conveying heat and light to every individual in the federal commonwealth. "Sweden lost her liberties," says the Abbe Raynal, "because her citizens were so scattered, that they had no means of acting in concert with each other." It should be a constant injunction to the post-masters to convey newspapers free of all charge for postage. They are not only the vehicles of knowledge and intelligence, but the centinels of the liberties of our country.

The conduct of some of those strangers who have visited our country since the peace, and who fill the British papers with accounts of our distresses, shews as great a want of good sense, as it does of good-nature. They see nothing but the foundations and walls of the temple of liberty; and yet they undertake to judge of the whole fabric.

Our own citizens act a still more absurd part, when they cry out, after the experience of three or four years, that we are not proper materials for republican government. Remember we assumed these forms of government in a hurry, before we were prepared for them. Let every man exert himself in promoting virtue and knowledge in our country, and we shall soon become good republicans. Look at the steps by which governments have been changed,

or rendered stable in Europe. Read the history of Great Britain. Her boasted government has risen out of wars and rebellions that lasted above six hundred years. The United States are travelling peaceably into order and good government. They know no strife but what arises from the collision of opinions; and, in three years, they have advanced further in the road to stability and happiness, than most of the nations in Europe have done, in as many centuries.

There is but one path that can lead the United States to destruction; and that is, their extent of territory. It is probable to effect this, that Great Britain ceded to us so much waste land. But even this path may be avoided. Let but one new State be exposed to sale at a time, and let the land-office be shut up, till every part of this new State be settled.

I am extremely sorry to find a passion for retirement so universal among the patriots and heroes of the war. They resemble skilful mariners who, after exerting themselves to preserve a ship from sinking in a storm in the middle of the ocean, drop asleep as soon as the waves subside, and leave the care of their lives and property during the remainder of the voyage to sailors without knowledge or experience. Every man in a republic is public property. His time and talents—his youth—his manhood—his old age—nay more, his life, his all, belong to his country.

Patriots of 1774, 1775, 1776-heroes of 1778, 1779, 1780! come forward! your country demands your services! Philosophers and friends of mankind, come forward! your country demands your studies and speculations! Lovers of peace and order, who declined taking part in the late war, come forward! your country forgives your timidity and demands your influence and advice! Hear her proclaiming, in sighs and groans, in her governments, in her finances, in her trade, in her manufactures, in her morals, and in her manners,

"THE REVOLUTION IS NOT OVER!"

APPENDIX C.

PROSPECTUS OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTION, TO BE ESTABLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES.

By JOEL BARLOW.
1806.

[Reprinted from a defective copy of Barlow's pamphlet in the Congressional Library, supplemented by the reprint in the National Intelligencer of 1806, and a MS. copy in the possession of Dr. J. C. Welling.]

The project for erecting a university at the seat of the federal government is brought forward at a happy moment, and on liberal principles. We may therefore reasonably hope for an extensive endowment from the munificence of individuals, as well as from government itself. This expectation will naturally lead us to enlarge our ideas on the subject, and to give a greater scope to its

practical operation than has usually been contemplated in institutions of a similar nature.

Two distinct objects, which, in other countries have been kept asunder, may and ought to be united; they are both of great national importance; and by being embraced in the same Institution, they will aid each other in their acquisition. These are the advancement of knowledge by associations of scientific men, and the dissemination of its rudiments by the instruction of youth. The first has been the business of learned corporations, such as the Royal Society of London, and the National Institute of France; the second is pursued by collections of instructors, under the name of universities, colleges, academies, etc. The leading principle of uniting these two branches of improvement in one Institution, to be extended upon a scale that will render it truly national, requires some developement. We find ourselves in possession of a country so vast as to lead the mind to anticipate a scene of social intercourse and interest unexampled in the experience of mankind. This territory presents and will present such a variety of productions, natural and artificial, such a diversity of connections abroad, and of manners, habits, and propensities at home, as will create a strong tendency to diverge and separate the views of those who shall inhabit the different regions within our limits.

It is most essential to the happiness of the people and to the preservation of their republican principles, that this tendency to a separation should be overbalanced by superior motives to a harmony of sentiment; that they may habitually feel that community of interest on which their federal system is founded. This desirable object is to be attained, not only by the operations of the government in its several departments, but by those of literature, sciences, and arts. The liberal sciences are in their nature republican; they delight in reciprocal communication; they cherish fraternal feelings, and lead to a freedom of intercourse, combined with the restraints of society, which contribute together to our improvement.

To explore the natural productions of our country, give an enlightened direction to the labors of industry, explain the advantages of interior tranquillity, of moderation and justice in the pursuits of self-interest, and to promote as far as circumstances will admit, an assimilation of civil regulations, political principles and modes of education, must engage the solicitude of every patriotic citizen; as he must perceive in them the necessary means of securing good morals and every republican virtue; a wholesome jealousy of right and a clear understanding of duty; without which, no people can be expected to enjoy the one or perform the other for any number of years.

The time is fast approaching when the United States, if no foreign disputes should induce an extraordinary expenditure of money, will be out of debt. From that time forward, the greater part of their public revenue may, and probably will, be applied to public improvements of various kinds; such as facilitating the intercourse through all parts of their dominion by roads, bridges, and canals; such as making more exact surveys, and forming maps and charts of the interior country, and of the coasts, bays and harbors, perfecting the system of lights, buoys, and other nautical aids; such as encouraging new branches of industry, so far as may be advantageous to the public, either by offering premiums for discoveries, or by purchasing from their proprietors such inven

tions as shall appear to be of immediate and general utility, and rendering them free to the citizens at large; such as exploring the remaining parts of the wilderness of our continent, both within and without our own jurisdiction, and extending to their savage inhabitants, as far as may be practicable, a taste for civilization, and the means of knowing the comforts that men are capable of yielding to each other in the peaceable pursuits of industry, as they are understood in our stage of society.

To prepare the way for the government to act on these great objects with intelligence, economy, and effect, and to aid its operations when it shall be ready to apply its funds to that purpose, will occupy in part the attention of that branch of the Institution composed of men of scientific research; whose labors, it is expected, will be in a great measure gratuitous. It cannot be too early, even at this moment, to direct the researches of science to occupations of this nature. By these means, at the end of the eleven years, the epoch at which the government may expect to be free of debt, the way can be prepared to begin with system, and proceed with regularity in the various details of public improvement; a business which, if the rulers of all nations did but know it, ought to be considered among the first of their duties, one of the principal objects of their appointment.

war.

The science of political economy is still in its infancy; as indeed is the whole science of government, if we regard it as founded on principles analogous to the nature of man, and designed to promote his happiness. As we believe our government to be founded on these principles, we cannot but perceive an immense field of improvement opening before us; a field in which all the physical as well as the moral sciences should lend their aid and unite their operation, to place human society on such a footing in this great section of the habitable world, as to secure it against farther convulsions from violence and Mankind have a right to expect this example from us; we alone are in a situation to hold it up before them, to command their esteem, and perhaps their imitation. Should we, by a narrowness of views, neglect the opportunity of realizing so many benefits, we ought to reflect that it never can occur to us again; nor can we foresee that it will return to any age or nation. We should grievously disappoint the expectations of all good in other countries, we should ourselves regret our error while we live; and if posterity did not load us with the reproaches we should merit, it would be because our conduct will have kept them ignorant of the possibility of obtaining the blessings, of which it had deprived them.

It would be superfluous, in this Prospectus, to point out the objects merely scientific, that will naturally engage the attention of this branch of the Institution. We are sensible that many of the sciences, physical as well as moral, are very little advanced; some of them, in which we seem to have made considerable progress, are yet so uncertain as to leave it doubtful whether even their first principles do not remain to be discovered; and in all of them, there is a great deficiency as to the mode of familiarising their results, and applying them to the useful arts of life, the true object of all labor and research.

What a range is open in this country for mineralogy and botany! How many new arts are to arise, and how far the old ones are to be advanced, by the pursuit of these two sciences, it is impossible even to imagine. Chemistry is making

a rapid and useful progress, though we still dispute about its elements. Our knowledge of anatomy has laid a necessary and sure foundation for surgery and medicine; surgery indeed is making great proficiency; but, after three thousand years of recorded experience, how little do we know of medicine ! Mechanics and hydraulics are progressing fast, and wonderful are the facilities and comforts we draw from them; but while it continues to be necessary to make use of animal force to move heavy bodies in any direction by land or water, we have a right to anticipate new discoveries. Could the genius of a Bacon place itself on the high ground of all the sciences in their present state of advancement, and marshal them before him in so great a country as this, and under a government like ours, he would point out their objects, foretell their successes, and move them on their march, in a manner that should animate their votaries and greatly accelerate their progress.

The mathematics, considered as a science, may probably be susceptible of higher powers than it has yet attained; considered as the handmaid of all the sciences and all the arts, it doubtless remains to be simplified. Some new processes, and perhaps new modes of expressing quantities and numbers, may yet be discovered, to assist the mind in climbing the difficult steps that lead to an elevation so much above our crude conceptions; an elevation that subjects the material universe, with all its abstractions of space and time, to our inspection; and opens, from their combinations, so many useful and satisfying truths.

Researches in literature, to which may be united those in morals, government, and laws, are so vague in their nature, and have been so little methodised, as scarcely to have obtained the name of sciences. No man has denied the importance of these pursuits; though the English nation, from whom we have borrowed so many useful things, has not thought proper to give them that consistency and standing among the objects of laudable ambition, to which they are entitled. Men the most eminent in these studies have not been members of their learned associations. Locke, Berkeley, Pope, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Adam Smith, and Blackstone, were never admitted into the Royal Society. This is doubtless owing to the nature of their government; though the government itself exerts no influence in these elections. The science of morals connects itself so intimately with the principles of political institutions, that where it is deemed expedient to keep the latter out of sight, it is not strange that the former should meet no encouragement.

This policy is strikingly exemplified in the history of the French Institute. That learned and respectable body was incorporated by the National Convention in the year 1795, and took place of all the old academies, which had been previously abolished. It was composed of three classes, according to the objects to be pursued by its members. The first was the class for the physical sciences, the second was the class for the moral and political sciences, the third was for the fine arts. Thus it went on and made great progress in several branches, till the year 1803, when Bonaparte's government assumed that character which rendered the pursuit of moral and political science inconvenient to him. He then new modelled the Institute, and abolished that class. But lest his real object should be perceived, and he be accused of narrowing the compass of research, he created two new classes in the room of this; one for