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VOL. I.] AUGUSTA— PRINTED BY DANIEL STARNES & Co. WEST END OF BROAD-STitEFT. PROPOSALS bY DANIEL STARNES & CO. . tJHfib* b Subfcrftirm a verily IN THE CITY OF AUGUSTA, TO BE ENTITLED Mirror of the 1 imcs• THE universal promulgation of ".V »cd the general diflribtttion of know £ of the firft importance m trv where liberty h,s left trace, SS betflip*. und t r go f v " nment coufulu <M happioc. of Mm !ir.owWfe,” 9 reat „ V° rd united w.th virtue it certainly liberty Where ignorance reigns there triumph, and despotism governs. A, «hn-oine* enlightened authority will be ST* .«4 «“-*«.«!« & ueare t,ie baie * of freedom “* he one ds u, in our r gt.ts, the other teaeht* *‘ ( ,ur duties; the fi rlt thews us how to con- L a tl e hell p« l°rm of government, the Uft requires u, to obey it when conflruc- J | t therefore advantageous every where, out in a b<t Mk k '* a b ‘°lurcly necessary, t[) . : forrt ct information should be widely iifTfcd and easily obtained : For tbtrt ’ti, lit perflt who govern. ‘lbey never inten tioral" chotfe bad leaders or approve wrong jure,, vet they are liable to error—give tUmtrue details and they will juoge eer ily—for or. plain grounds the people ail wtvs frttn jufi opinions ■ whenever they mif tshe tbeir own imereti* ’ti, owing entirely to w.i t of information in the many or warn (flmeePy m the fin’. But extrjive polili cal mftrmrtiou innot to be acquired without auth labour, ant! lew have leifurc to study the fyftems,compare the opinion, and pe tufe the page* of Locke, Sydney, Gibbon, Hume and Vattel. If an acquaintance with the true principles of government and duties of, citizen could be acquired only from huge foliu, & diCiiie trcatifei, it would be fcldom fought or if fought, the plough, the hatchet, and the saw must stand still. Seme chenper and easier means of fatisfying curi ’efity and procuring information mull there fore be looitid loi ; ai d where i, intelligence iheapntf, and convenience united with more idvauttge, than in theclofily printed col nm ut the humble New,.paper ? Our countrymen appear io well convinced of the ulelulnefs of periodical prints and have so vtty liber ally encouraged them, that we deem it uunectfTary to insist on their merit, md almolt I titrate to request public pafron igefur another News-paper cftablilhinent. We can pri mife little except what atten tion, honefiy & induflry cau perform. The principle, cl our Paper, likeour own, will be Republican, “ but the fame freedom of opin ion which we claim for ourfelve,, we wifli ,11 other* to enjoy.” Civil and Religious liberty i, the birh right of evry man, and fcewho will not extend the fame indulgence to all parties, and all feift, which he willies for hi* own, ii already or deserve. to be a Have. To support Religion and morality will he our pride—to encourage literature our ndeavor—no communications calculated to io either will be refufed ; no hint will be weeded. In a free country it is neceflary tat the law thould be neither vague nor \ •known, ,11 public adts of the State leg- j .Mature, will therefore be published as they to lund. ' The MIRROR OF THE TIMES will he i "l* 3lo dl wbn canvass public measure with ; decency,and in examining the conduct of tovicuals, as, officers of government—it ( . ' ni w_ I Wo Party but my Country. iVo iut Truth," CONDITIONS. kThe MIRROR OF THE TIMES will be „ pohliflied every Monday, „n a royal Citet of an excellent quality, and good 11. Ihe price to fubferbers will be three «ol!sri. per annum, paid half yearly in aovancc. 11L 1 he price tor advertising will be fifty can, per (qua re (or the fir ft infection i & thirty seven and a half for each eon- i tmuation. cr C a P cr w bc delivered to Town I l cr ' b, rs at their place, of abode and . 01e lcr ft'* country will be dene np •“packet, and delivered at the l’oft- UtfU'C. notice. L perlori having any de- Blends againO the Ed ate of Da 'la Eeq. late of War county deceased, «re re. c ,ltd to render in their ac c< Uf,, S and those indebted ate tiily solicited io make ini- Acetate payment. Mary NEWSOM, admV Ju, y 2 4- gt JUST RECEIVED, rr AN “ FOR SALt \ andsovtc C? Covvenient ™*rk made Gigs its . c( ' barnvss comiikte, •-quire o] tf iC pritacis, July, 17. INK POWDER Torte aui tiisoOce. MI RROR OF THE TIMES AN ORATION. Delivered at Washington City on . the 4tii of July, By JOEL BARLOW, Esq. Friends &? Fellow Citizens ; The day we now commemorate will never cease to excite in us the most exhilirating- reflections and mutual gratuLtions. Minds of sensibility accustomed-to range over The field of ctntemplation, that the birth of our empire spreads before them, must expand on this occasion to great ideas, and in vigorate their patriotic semi- j (Dents. The thirty-three years of na tional existence, which have bro’i us to our prestnt condition, are crowded indeed with instinctive facts, and comprise an interesting I portion of history. But they have only prepared this gigantic iniant I of a nation to begin its own de* j velopemcnt. '1 hey are only the ! prelude to the greater events that ; setin to unfold themselves befoic i us, and call tor ihe highest wis- j dom to give them their proper ; direction. It appears to have been the prac tice of the publick speakers, cal led to give uttenrance to the fee lings of their fellow-citizens, on the anniversary of this day, to dwell chiefly upon (hose mtmora- I ble transactions, which necessita ted, and thc*e which afterwards suppoited the act of Independence that gives name to the present festi val. Such were the oppressions of Britain and our effectual resis. tcnce to those oppressions. Trans actions so [eventful are doubtless worthy to be held in perpetual remembrance —And as they ought never to be forgotten, they should frequently be recalled to the re membrance of our youngest bre thicn, who cau know them only lrom their elders.——But those conflicting settles are now become every where matter of record.—- They are detailed so copiously in our annals and so often by our crators, as to rend er the repcii ion of their story at this moment far less important than to turn our attention to other subjects grow i ,n g out of the interests of our bles ; sed country. ** Out departed Heroes and j men have not gone without their j lame. Our tears have mingled i with the ashesof tho.se fallen in our ; battles, & those who have desceu j ded in peace to a later tomb. j Our gratitude attends on the pre- ; cious few w h° remain to us of i that li ßts c f worthies ; the illustri j ous i elies of so many fldds of dan g-r it so many years of labor ; who ltd us iu all our darings, when re sistance to tyrants, as well in the i forum as ike field, was deemed re j hellion, &. threatened with death I Their whitened locks that stilKvave among us, are title ato our vene atton ; they command, and will obtain it, while the virtues they j have taught us to practise shall j continue to warm our hearts. But our respect for the memory and the pet sons of all our leaders will be best evinced by the pious culture we bestow on the ricn he. ritage they have secured and are handing over to our possession— -Ihe present race is likewise pas sing away ; but the nation re mains and rises with its years.— While we, the present race, are able to call ourselves the nation, we should be sensible of the grtaints6 of the charge that has : devolved upon us. We have du j ties to posterity as well as to our i selves. We must gather up our strength & encounter those duties. Yes my friends ve are,now the na tion. As tilth, we have arrived at that epoch when instead of looking back with wonder upon ißir iniau cy, we n ay look forward with #o heitude to a state of adolescence, with confidence to a state of man hood. Thu’ as a nation, we are 44 HOLD THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE.” Shakespeare. yet in the morning of life, we have already attained an elevation which enables us to discern our course ;to its meridian splendor ; to con i template the height we have to I climb and the commanding sta llion we must gain, in order to i fulfil the destinies to which we are (*i!ed, and perform the duties that 1 the cause of human happiness re i'quireß at our hands, j To prepare the United States to ! act the distinguihscU part that Providence, has assigned them, it | is necessary to convince them that ; the means are within their power, j A familiar knowledge of the means ; will teach ushow to employ them in j the attainment of the cud. Know- j lodge will lead to wisdom ; and wisdom, in no small degree, is requisite in the conduct of affairs Iso momentous and so ntw. For our situation is, in many respects, i noc only new to us but new also to I the world. The form of government we : have chosen, tile geographical po- i I siti<>n we occupy, as relative to [ the most lurblueut powers of Eu } tope, whose political maxima are widely different from ours ; the vast extent of continent winch is, or must be comprised within our limits, containing not less than sixteen hundred million* of acres and susceptible ol a population of ! two hunured millions of human beings ; our habits of industry & peace, instead of violence fk war —-all these are circumstances which rennets our situation us uovu as it is important, it requires new the ories ; it has forced upon U 3 new and bold, and in some cases, I doubful experiments ; it calls lor | deep reflection, on the propensi ties of human uatue, an accurate acqua.utance with the history of human actions ■, and what Is per haps the most difficult to attain, a wise discrimination among the maxims ot wisdom, or what are such in other tin, C s and nations to determine which of them are applicable, and wiiich would be item mental to the end we have in \iew. i would by no means in sinuate that we should itject the counsels ol antiquity in mass : or turn a tieai tar to tne voice ol mo. dem experience, because it i> not our own. —60 lar as the policy of other nations is founded on the real relations ol social man, on his moral nature undisguised, it may dubtless be worthy of imitation j , but so far a# it is drawn fr°m his moral nature disguised by habits ! i materially difTertnt fioai ours, j sucll policy is to be suspected, it t* to be scrutinized & broLgfit to the test, not perhaps ot oui experi ; encc, tor that may in ccrtatu ea sts, be wanting, but ihe test of the general principles of our institu tions, and 'he habits and maxim* that arise out of them. There has been no nation either ancient or modern, that could have presented banian nature in the same character as ours does - & will present it i tvecause there ha» existed no nation whose govern ment has resembled our*, /.repre sentative democracy, on a la:g« scale, with a fixt constitution, has j never before been attempted, and has no where else succeeded. — j A federal government onde-mocra tic principles is equally u*prece- [ dented, and exhibits a stili grea ter innovation on a!i received ideas ot statesmen and lawgivers. Ncr has any theorist in political science any among those powerless poteii- j tales of reason, the philosopher who have taught so many valua ble things, evdr framed a system, or conceived a combination of principles producing such a result, j Circumstances beyond our coo ! troi had thrown in our way the materials tor this wonderful institu tion. Our first merit lay in not re jecting them. Hut when our sa ges began to discern the use that might L»e made of materials men so unpromising, they discovered l great talents and patriotism in com bining them into the system we now find in operation. It is in. deed a stupendous fabric ; the greatest political phenomenon, and probably will be considered as the greatest advancement in the sci. I encc of government that aii modern ages have produced. This is not the moment to go into a dissertation on the peculiar character of our political institu ; tions. The subject being well un derstood by so respectable a por tion of this assembly, and the time allotted to this part of the exercises • of the day being necessarily short, | I should hardly expect 10 obtain j your indulgence If 1 were even ca pable of doing justuce to so great a theme. Otherwise the whole eouipass of human affairs does not admit ot a more profitable inquiry. Every citizen should make it ins fa vorite suuly, and consider it is an indispensable part of the education of Jus children. liut nations are educated like I individual infants. They are what they are taught to be. They be come whatever their tutors desire, and invite and prepare and force them to become. 1 hey may be taught to reason correctly ; they may be taught to reason perverse ly ; they may be taught not to rea at all. The last is the case of des potism ; the second where they reason perversely, is the case of a i nation with an unsettled & unprin cipled government, by whatever technical name it may be distin guished ; for a democracy without a constitution, though generally and justly called the school of dis order and perversity, is no more liable to these calamines than a monarcy ill defined and without a known principle of action, and where the arm of power lias not that steady tension which would render it completely despotic.— The first, the ease in which they reason correctly, if it ever existed or ever is to exist, must be ours.— Oar nation must, il can, its legisla tors ought to say it skull, be taught to reason correctly, to act justly’, to pursue us own interest upon so large a scale as not to interfere with the interest or at least with the rights,of other nations.- For the mo. meat it should interfere with theirs it could no longer be said to be pur suing ns own. W hat then are the interests of this nation, which it becomes us as | private citizens (without any mis- I sion but the autocratical right of individuals) to recommend to the great oody of the Ainericau peo ,plc on tins auspicious occasion? The most obvious and 1 believe the most important aiu comprised in two words i and to them 1 shall confine my observations ; public impr ovtmcnts and public instruc tion* These two objects, tho’ dis tinct in the organization which they w ill require are so similar in their effects, that most of the arguments tliat whi apply to one, will apply ' equally to both. 'They arc both i»ecess.ary to the piescrvation ol our principles ot government; they are both necessary to the supported thesy»ttm mto which those prjn. ciples are wraught, the system we now enjoy , they are each of them ! essential, perhap-dn an equal degree i to the perfecting of that.systcm, to I our perceiving and preparing the a meliorations of which it is suscepti ble’ I shall' dweel exclusively on these two objects not because they are the only ones that might be 1 pointed out, but because their im portance, their immediate & press- I ing importance act ins to have been i les* attended to and probably less understood than it ought to have been among Me general concern* i of the union. Public iimprove inennts, such as roads, bridges and canals, are u. sually considered on a commer cial and economical point of light; they ought likewise to be rcgaid. ed iu amoral and political light.— i 1 MONDAY, August 7, 1807. Cast your ryes over the surface of our do* mion, with a view to its vast cx ent ; with a view to its present and approaching state oi population ; with a view to the difFertut habits, manners, lan guages, origin, morals, maxims of the people ; with a view to the na ture of those ties, those political artificial ties, which hold them to gether as one people, & which are to be relied upon, to continue to hold them together as one peo ple when their number shall rise to hundreds of millions of free, men possessing the spirit of in* dependence that becomes their station. What anxiety, what solicitude, what painful, appre hensions must naturally crowd upon the mind for the continuance of such a government, stretching its thin texture over such a coun tiy, and in the hands of such a people ! The prospect is awlul ; the object, if attainable, is magni ficent be>ond comparison ; but the difficulty of attaining it and the danger of losing it, are suffi cient to cloud the prospect in the eyes of many respectable citizens, and lorce them to despair. Des pair in this case to an ardent spir it devoted to the best good of his country, is a distressing state in* deed. 1 o despair of preserving the federal union of these republics j ~jr an infinite length of time with out a dismemberment, is to lose the highest hopes of human socie ty .the greatest promise of the bet tering its condition that the efforts of all generations 1 , have produced. I he man of sensibility who can contemplate wiihout horror the dis memberment of this empire, hag not well considered its effects.— And yet I scarcely mingle iu socie ty lor a day without hearing it pre* dieted, and the prediclou uttered with a evity bordering on indif ference ; and that too by welt ilj s , posed men ol every political party. Hence I conclude that the subject has not been examined with the attention it deserves. I am not yet so unhappy as to believe ii\ tins prediction But I should bo forced to believe in it if 1 did licit anticipate the use of oili er meat)* than thuae we have y ct em ployed to perpetuate the union of the states. They must not be co ercive means* Such oues in most cases would produce effects direct ly reverse of what would be in tended. Our policy doe» not ad mu of standing armies j and if it did, we could not maintain them sufficiently numerous to restrain great bodies of freemen with arms in their hands, blinded by ignor ance, heated by zeal 3 led by fae„ tious fhief6 ; and if we could main tain them strong enough for that purpose, we alt know They would soon overturn the government they were intended to support. With as little prospect of success could we rely upon legislative means that is, upon laws against treason aud misdemeanor, or any other chapter ui the criminal code, Such laws may sometimes intiuiU date a chief of rebels, or a*few un supported traitors. But a whole geograheal district of rebels, a half a naiiiou of traitor*, wauld legislate against you. They would throw your laws into one scale and their own into the other, and lo ss in their bayonets to turn ib e bal ance. IJo, the means to be relied upon to bold this beneficent u-. . n,< j? n together, mutt apply di rcvlly to the interett and Con venience of the people ; they mull at the fame time enable liicm ifi difeern that interett and be Icniible of that convenience* The people mull become habi litated to enjoy a vilible, pal pable, incontcttible good ; a greater good than they could proinile themselves from any charge. T hey mutt have in- [No. 43.]