The DEVIL is in you.[39]

PROVIDENCE, 1786.

That the political body, like the animal, is liable to violent diseases, which, for a time, baffle the healing art, is a truth which we all acknowlege, and which most of us lament. But as most of the disorders, incident to the human frame, are the consequence of an intemperate indulgence of its appetites, or of neglecting the most obvious means of safety; so most of the popular tumults, which disturb government, arise from an abuse of its blessings, or an inattention to its principles. A man of a robust constitution, relying on its strength, riots in gratifications which weaken the stamina vitÆ; the surfeiting pleasures of a few years destroy the power of enjoyment; and the full fed voloptuary feels a rapid transition to the meagre valetudinarian. Thus people who enjoy an uncommon share of political privileges, often carry their freedom to licentiousness, and put it out of their power to enjoy society by destroying its support.

Too much health is a disease, which often requires a very strict regimen; too much liberty is the worst of tyranny; and wealth may be accumulated to such a degree as to impoverish a State. If all men attempt to become masters, the most of them would necessarily become slaves in the attempt; and could every man on earth possess millions of joes, every man would be poorer than any man is now, and infinitely more wretched, because they could not procure the necessaries of life.

My countrymen, it is a common saying now, that the devil is in you. I question the influence of the devil, however, in these affairs. Divines and politicians agree in this, to father all evil upon the devil; but the effects ascribed to this prince of evil spirits, both in the moral and political world, I ascribe to the wickedness and ignorance of the human heart. Taking the word Devil in this sense, he is in you, and among you, in a variety of shapes.

In the first place, the weakness of our federal government is the devil. It prevents the adoption of any measures that are requisit for us, as a nation; it keeps us from paying our honest debts; it also throws out of our power all the profits of commerce, and this drains us of cash. Is not this the devil? Yes, my countrymen, an empty purse is the devil.

You say you are jealous of your rights, and dare not trust Congress. Well, that jealousy is an evil spirit, and all evil spirits are devils. So far the devil is in you. You act, in this particular, just like the crew of a ship, who would not trust the helm with one of their number, because he might possibly run her ashore, when by leaving her without a pilot, they were certain of shipwreck. You act just like men, who in raising a building, would not have a master workman, because he might give out wrong orders. You will be masters yourselves; and as you are not all ready to lift at the same time, one labors at a stick of timber, then another, then a third; you are then vexed that it is not raised; why let a master order thirteen of you to take hold together, and you will lift it at once. Every family has a master (or a mistress—I beg the ladies' pardon.) When a ship or a house is to be built, there is a master; when highways are repairing, there is a master; every little school has a master; the continent is a great school; the boys are numerous, and full of roguish tricks, and there is no master. The boys in this great school play truant, and there is no person to chastise them. Do you think, my countrymen, that America is more easily governed than a school? You do very well in small matters; extend your reason to great ones. Would you not laugh at a farmer who would fasten a cable to a plough, and yet attempt to draw a house with a cobweb? "And Nathan said unto David, thou art the man." You think a master necessary to govern a few harmless children in a school or family; yet leave thousands of great rogues to be governed by good advice. Believe me, my friends, for I am serious; you lose rights, because you will not giv your magistrates authority to protect them. Your liberty is despotism, because it has no control; your power is nothing, because it is not united.

But further, luxury rages among you, and luxury is the devil. The war has sent this evil demon to impoverish people, and embarrass the public. The articles of rum and tea alone, which are drank in this country, would pay all its taxes. But when we add, sugar, coffee, feathers, and the whole list of baubles and trinkets, what an enormous expense? No wonder you want paper currency. My countrymen are all grown very tasty! Feathers and jordans must all be imported! Certainly gentlemen, the devil is among you. A Hampshire man, who drinks forty shillings worth of rum in a year, and never thinks of the expense, will raise a mob to reduce the governor's salary, which does not amount to three pence a man per annum. Is not this the devil?

My countrymen—A writer appeared, not long ago, informing you how to redress grievances.[40] He givs excellent advice. Let every man make a little box, and put into it four pence every day. This in a year will amount to six pounds one shilling and eight pence, a sum more than sufficient to pay any poor man's tax. Any man can pay three or four pence a day, though no poor man can, at the end of a year, pay six pounds. Take my advice, every man of you, and you will hardly feel your taxes.

But further, a tender law is the devil. When I trust a man a sum of money, I expect he will return the full value. That Legislature which says my debtor may pay me with one third of the value he received, commits a deliberate act of villany; an act for which an individual, in any government, would be honored with a whipping post, and in most governments, with a gallows. When a man makes dollars, one third of which only is silver, and passes them for good coin, he must lose his ears, &c.

But Legislatures can, with the solemn face of rulers, and guardians of justice, boldly give currency to an adulterated coin, enjoin it upon debtors to cheat their creditors, and enforce their systematic knavery with legal penalties. The differences between the man who makes and passes counterfeit money, and the man who tenders his creditor one third of the value of the debt, and demands a discharge, is the same as between a thief and a robber. The first cheats his neighbor in the dark, and takes his property without his knowlege: The last boldly meets him at noon day, tells him he is a rascal, and demands his purse.

My countrymen, the devil is among you. Make paper as much as you please; make it a tender in all future contracts, or let it rest on its own bottom: But remember that past contracts are sacred things; that Legislatures have no right to interfere with them; they have no right to say, a debt shall be paid at a discount, or in any manner which the parties never intended. It is the business of justice to fulfil the intention of parties in contracts, not to defeat them. To pay bona fide contracts for cash, in paper of little value, or in old horses, would be a dishonest attempt in an individual; but for Legislatures to frame laws to support and encourage such detestable villany, is like a judge who should inscribe the arms of a rogue over the feat of justice, or clergymen who should convert into bawdy-houses the temples of Jehovah. My countrymen, the world says, the devil is in you: Mankind detest you as they would a nest of robbers.

But lastly, mobs and conventions are devils. Good men love law and legal measures. Knaves only fear law, and try to destroy it. My countrymen, if a constitutional Legislature cannot redress a grievance, a mob never can. Laws are the security of life and property; nay, what is more, of liberty. The man who encourages a mob to prevent the operation of law, ceases to be free or safe; for the same principle which leads a man to put a bayonet to the breast of a judge, will lead him to take property where he can find it; and when the judge dare not act, where is the loser's remedy? Alas, my friends, too much liberty is no liberty at all. Giv me any thing but mobs; for mobs are the devil in his worst shape. I would shoot the leader of a mob, sooner than a midnight ruffian. People may have grievances, perhaps, and no man would more readily hold up his hand to redress them than myself; but mobs rebel against laws of their own, and rebellion is a crime which admits of no palliation.

My countrymen, I am a private, peaceable man. I have nothing to win or to lose by the game of paper currency; but I revere justice. I would sooner pick oakum all my life, than stain my reputation, or pay my creditor one farthing less than his honest demands.

While you attempt to trade to advantage, without a head to combine all the States into systematic, uniform measures, the world will laugh at you for fools. While merchants take and giv credit, the world will call them idiots, and laugh at their ruin. While farmers get credit, borrow money, and mortgage their farms, the world will call them fools, and laugh at their embarrassments. While all men liv beyond their income, and are harrassed with duns and sheriffs, no man will pity them, or giv them relief. But when mobs and conventions oppose the courts of justice, and Legislatures make paper or old horses a legal tender in all cases, the world will exclaim with one voice—Ye are rogues, and the devil is in you!