OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
MA/AILTON
PRESENTED BY FREDERICK W. PUTNAM
AMERICAN
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD
AND
DIALOGUES OF THE AMERICAN DEAD,
PHILADELPHIA:
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD EARLE
William Fry, Printer.
1814,
INTRODUCTION. (2<3UJt
IK reading the Dialogues of Lucian, of Plato and
Cicero among the ancients, and those of Fontenelle,
Fenelon, Lyttleton and others among the moderns, the
idea was suggested to the author of these Dialogues,
that the same vehicle of instruction and amusement
might be employed to the advantage of his country-
men. The writers before mentioned had each of them
his separate object in view, in resorting to this mode
of communication. His object is simply to endeavour*
to be of some little service to a country that he loves.,
by inculcating upon his fellow-citizens sound princi
ples in politics, literature, morals and religion. His in
tention, should he meet with sufficient encouragement
from the public, is to continue these Dialogues in a
series of numbers, under the heads of the political,
literary, moral and religious. The two first of the poli
tical he now offers to the public in his first number,,
Scrupulously avoiding cither to utter the language of
party or to imbibe its spirit, he has confined his view
solely to those great principles in which all ought to
agree, but against which all in their turns are alike
prone to trespass* And in the investigation of all sub
M632651
jects, but ntore especially those which are political, it
is of the greatest importance frequently to revert back
to fundamental principles. He indulges an humble
hope that the speeches which he has put into the
mouths of those illustrious patriots and statesmen,
whom he has chosen as his dialogists, though not
such as they might themselves have spoken, at any
rate will be found not utterly unworthy of them. The
author has endeavoured to transfuse into them that
spirit which breathes in their several works. He is
fully sensible of the difficulty of his undertaking, and
should have abandoned it in utter despair, had he not
been encouraged by the hope of calling into the view
of both those parties which now engross the politics of
his country, some fundamental points in which they
should unite, and thereby preventing them, if not
from indulging intemperate heats, at all events from
being transported to those excesses which may prove
fatal to the republic. Upon points of minor impor
tance, party animosity, under certain restrictions, may
innocently exhaust itself, but on these we should say
to party rage, as in the fiat of Heaven was said to the
ocean, thus far shalt thou go and no farther, and here
shall thy proud waves be stayed. The author of these
Dialogues is a native American, and has been accus
tomed from the earliest period of life, to study and ad
mire the constitution of his country. The sentiments
of his youth have been confirmed by the reflections
and observations of his more mature years. He still
regards that constitution, as one of the proudest mo-
numents of human wisdom. His best hopes for his
country are involved in its success, and surely its fate
depends in a great degree upon ourselves. If we are
determined, at all hazards, to pull down and destroy it,
it will be wonderful, indeed, if it has strength to resist
us; but if we are resolved to save it, there can be no
solid reason given why it should not survive. It is
hoped, at all events, that amidst the most violent con
flicts of party, and even the din of arms, there are some
inclined to listen to the counsels of prudence, modera
tion and temperance.
If encouraged by the public, it is the intention of
the author to proceed, in due time, with the literary,
moral and religious dialogues, in all of which he shall
select such topics as will be the most useful and inter
esting to his fellow-citizens. The present situation of
his country is too serious to permit him in this num
ber to assume any other than a grave aspect. In some
of those that follow he expects occasionally to relax
his muscles into a smile, and endeavour to amuse as
well as lecture his readers. He throws himself, not
without sensibility, upon the candour and impartiality
of the public. By its decision, after a fair hearing, he
is willing to abide, and promises not to murmur
at the sentence although it should be against him
AMERICAN
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD,
DIALOGUE I.
WASHINGTON, ALFRED AND WILLIAM TELL.
WASHINGTON.
THERE was an interesting wildness, like that of
your native mountains, in the spirit of liberty exhi
bited by you, William Tell, and your illustrious co
adjutors in the cause of Switzerland. I could never
peruse, without a mixture of admiration and enthu
siasm, the events of your life, during the short but
glorious career which you ran, while acting as the
champion of your country's freedom. They who look
back upon your conduct, without transporting them
selves to the period in which you lived, and adverting
to the circumstance that Switzerland, and many other
nations of Europe, was then subject to the iron grasp
of feudal tyranny, will award you but a small portion
of the praise which you merited in that heroic enter-
prize. How noble was the indignation which you dis-
8
covered at the cruel, wanton and atrocious acts of
despotism, practised by the tyrant Gesler; and how
daring the magnanimity and heroism with which you
breasted yourself to the shock of arbitrary power, and
broke asunder the chains with which he had fettered
your country! There is something so singular and ex
traordinary in the incidents related in this portion of
your life, that we should almost feel inclined to ascribe
their origin to the airy dreams of fiction and romance,
and to assign them a place among the fabulous exploits
of Hercules and Theseus, were they not established by
the sober and enlightened testimony of more recent
and authentic history. How very interesting and ro
mantic, for instance, are the circumstances recorded,
of your spirited refusal to render obeisance to that ri
diculous pageant which the tyrant erected at Altorf, to
mock and insult the good sense of the people; of the
cruel punishment to which you were condemned by
him; of the wonderful dexterity with which you shot
the apple from the head of your child; of your almost
miraculous deliverance from the hands of your op
pressor while he was transporting you over the Lake
Lucerne, to imprisonment, bonds, and perhaps to your
fate; and of the happy opportunity which, on that occa
sion, was, at length, presented to you of directing an
arrow to the heart of the execrable monster, and at
once relieving Switzerland from her sufferings and her
fears! Through the medium of these transactions we
are enabled to trace in you the lineaments of one of
those bold, impracticable and invincible minds which
are formed to become the scourge of tyrants and the
deliverers of their country. By these generous and
disinterested acts of heroic virtue, you entitled your
memory to perpetual respect and veneration, and for
these are you now enjoying the glorious rewards of
Elysium. Such are the happiness and glory reserved,
in the wise order of the universe, for the benefactors
of their race! How delightful must have been your
sensations, after your toils and dangers were ended in
the complete deliverance of your country, to have
found yourself so endeared to the feelings, and conse
crated in the grateful remembrance, of your fellow-
citizens, and to have heard your name re-echoed
through the valleys of Switzerland in your native airs!
Could the tyrants and oppressors of mankind once be
made sensible of the pure and exalted enjoyment to be
derived from becoming the objects of gratitude, con
fidence and attachment to the people, their self love
alone would triumph over their pride and ambition,
and, foregoing their lust of power and domination,
they would learn to consult only the welfare and
happiness of their subjects. What is that pleasure
which is to be derived from the grandeur and magni
ficence of a throne, the splendor of imperial rank, the
pomp and pageantry of a court, and the venal adula
tions and obsequious homage of courtiers and syco
phants and slaves, in the midst of all which, perhaps,
the heart is the prey of distrust and anxious cares
and torturing fears; when compared to that pure, un
alloyed and vivid enjoyment which fills, occupies and
B
10
transports the soul when we are receiving the free,
unsolicited and unrestrained homage of a grateful
people?
WILLIAM TELL.
I do not wonder, General Washington, that you ex
press yourself with so much evident sensibility upon
these subjects. Never did man more richly deserve
the gratitude and affection of his fellow-citizens, and
never did man receive more flattering demonstrations
of them. If the efforts which were made by me in the
deliverance of Switzerland, spirited indeed, I am ready
to admit, (for I have in me a soul which could never
brook the ignominy and baseness of servitude,) if the
efforts, I say, which were made by me in the deliver
ance of Switzerland, so suddenly commenced, so short
in their continuance, and so speedily terminated, have
raised me so high in your estimation, what honours
did not you merit from the American nation for your
fatigues, anxieties, watchings and incessant toils, while
at the head of its armies during a long, perilous, and
bloody war: and for your subsequent useful exertions
in obtaining for it by the weight of your unbounded
influence, and bequeathing it with your latest breath,
that invaluable inheritance, a wise and admirable con-
stitution of government? Your greatest praise was that
unshaken fortitude with which you bore up under the
severest reverses of fortune, and pertinaciously adher
ed to the cause of your country, amidst those over
whelming difficulties and disasters, which would have
11
appalled the mind and subdued the resolutions of al
most all other men. All circumstances considered, I
regard your successful achievement of American in
dependence, as the sublimest effort of military skill
and prowess that was ever witnessed. And after you
had thus by your arms become the saviour of your
country, what consummate talents and address did
you display as a statesman, what exalted virtues as a
man! Nor were the honours and rewards with which
you were crowned incommensurate with your talents,
your services and your virtues. The brightest fictions
of fancy and romance have been realized in your life.
When your toils and dangers were ended with the
war, and you were elected by the unsolicited votes of
a free and grateful people their supreme magistrate,
the splendor of royal dignity or imperial rank would
have faded before the lustre of your glory. At every
step you were followed by the acclamations of the
people, and every movement you made through your
native land, was more illustrious than a Roman tri
umph. The poets of your infant country, in no vulgar
strains, have already sung of your heroic achieve
ments; orators adorned their discourses with your
name and exploits; and the historic muse has drawn
from the events of your life some of her richest and
most invaluable materials. If the death of Germanicus
filled with gloom the whole Roman empire, the news
of your decease vibrated in deep-toned horror through
every fibre in the hearts of your fellow- citizens. Your
glory, however, was not extinguished in the grave.
12
but rekindling from your ashes, only burns now with
a higher and more steady lustre. Your name is em
balmed in the memory of your countrymen. The first
words which children are taught to lisp is that of the
Father of their Country; the painter and the statuary
have exhausted all the resources of their arts in exhi
biting your form and features; and your image, like a
household god, meets the eye at every splendid dwell
ing as well as every log-house throughout your coun
try. The shades of Titus and Marcus Aurelius, as
well as Alfred here present with us, all of whom are
enjoying the rewards bestowed in this place upon the
benefactors of mankind, may envy you the honours
which are still thickening on your memory. Had you
lived in the days of pagan superstition, you would
have been deified at your death. The English justly
regard Alfred, who so nobly delivered them from the
incursions and dominion of the Danes, as a perfect
model of a virtuous Prince; and the Americans may,
with still greater justice, venerate their Washington,
as having exhibited an example, not only of one of the
greatest Military Chieftains, and most able Statesmen
that ever lived, but, what is still higher eulogy, of a
pure and incorruptible Patriot.
WASHINGTON,
Whatever may have been the merit to which I was
entitled, I have received an ample recompense in the
flattering estimation in which I was held by my fellow-
citizens and their unabated regard during the whole of
13
my life, and in the still higher pleasure which I now
enjoy, being admitted into the company of Epaminon-
das, Leonidas, Cato, Titus, Marcus Aurelius, Alfred,
William Wallace, and all the celebrated champions of
their country's rights and benefactors of mankind.
Among those illustrious sages and heroes, who by the
efforts of tkeir genius have filled the lower world with
their renown, and have contributed to enlighten, to hu
manize and improve their race, I have always regarded
Alfred as entitled to pre-eminent claims. Justly has he
been venerated by the English, through every period
of their history, as the perfect model of an unrivalled
sage and patriot king. If you, William Tell, and your
colleagues delivered Switzerland from the intolerable
yoke of Albert and his despicable minions, and I Ame
rica from the arbitrary and illegitimate pretensions of
England, Alfred enjoys the immortal honour of having
relieved his country from the ferocious and sanguinary
despotism of the Danes. The spirit and military skill
with which he resisted the repeated attacks of those
barbarous invaders his numerous and hard-fought
"battles his signal victories the unconquerable firm
ness with which he met the severest losses and misfor
tunes, when having his army overpowered by superior
numbers, broken, dispersed and dispirited, and he him
self being obliged to seek his safety in the disguise of
a peasant and perform the menial offices of a cow
herd the pertinacity with which under all these dis
couraging and dismaying circumstances, he still ad
hered to the sublime purpose of effecting his country's
14
deliverance the promptness and impetuosity with
which collecting his scattered troops, he availed him
self of the first opportunity to pour down upon his
enemies, again discomfited and subdued them his
lenity and hospitality even to these ferocious invaders
when the fortune of war had placed them in his power
all these considerations prove him to have been one
of the greatest heroes and best men that ever lived.
His glory was completed by his subsequent conduct
on re-ascending his throne. If before he had displayed
the talents of a gallant and able general, here he per
formed the part of a lawgiver and sage. Under his
happy sway, the wisest and most wholesome laws were
introduced, the welfare and happiness of his people
promoted by every expedient which wisdom, guided
by parental affection, could devise, and their rights
scrupulously regarded, the arts and sciences were en
couraged, colleges founded and endowed, commerce
and agriculture promoted, the cities, destroyed by his
enemies, rebuilt, and the whole nation advanced to a
state of prosperity and power which it had never known
before. But what peculiarly distinguished Alfred as a
sovereign, and should endear his memory to the wise
and good, not only of the English, but of every age
and nation, was his delicate and punctilious regard to
the rights and privileges of his subjects. So great was
his solicitude on this point, that even in his will, he
declared, " It is just that the English should be as
free as their own thoughts." Would all sovereigns but
follow his just and humane example, seldom should
15
we hear of those tumults, seditions and civil broils
which so often convulse the world and fill it with
blood.
ALFRED.
There, Washington, you touch a cord that never
fails to vibrate in my heart. I never recollect the good
which I did to my people, and the virtuous part I acted
among them, but my bosom is thrilled with delight.
It is in doing good to the people, in resorting to every
expedient to mitigate their sufferings, and like a kind
and benignant parent dispensing prosperity and hap
piness among them, that a sovereign or ruler of a na
tion, establishes his claims to empire and authority.
The reflection which always afforded me more plea
sure than all the splendor of royalty and the caresses
and homage of courtiers, was that by personal ser
vices, by the substantial benefits I had conferred, I had
purchased a title to the confidence and attachment of
my subjects, and that the influence which I had so
justly obtained over them, was exercised solely and
supremely with a view to their welfare. The substan
tial and permanent interests of the people is the only
legitimate end to the accomplishment of which a ruler
can direct his exertions. He holds his station under A
high responsibility to heaven, as its minister and vice
gerent, and as soon as he loses sight of the interests of
the nation, he forfeits his claim to the dignified post he
occupies. In this respect, what a sublime example has
been exhibited by Washington to the potentates and
16
rulers of the earth! How unambitious, disinterested
and incorruptible was he! Instead of abusing his im
mense influence and weight of character in the aggran
dizement of himself and family, or like Cromwell, in
order to elevate himself to supreme power, becoming
" guilty of his country's blood," he sighs only for the
quiet retreat of Mount Vernon, and like Cincinnatus
to ; " return to his plow. Honours and rewards, plen-
teously as his country showered them upon his head,
were unsought by him, and were the spontaneous effu
sions of a people's gratitude. How worthy of a seat in
these realms of light and happiness, is a soul thus
fraught with the sacred and celestial fires of virtue!
But amidst this rich harvest of well-earned fame which
you enjoyed, Washington, and while in all points you
were faithful to your own glory, have you not failed in
one particular, of vital importance to your country, and
with which her future destinies are intimately con-
nected? Should you not have exercised your unbound
ed influence in giving to your fellow-citizens a more
efficient and durable form of government? This was
an object altogether impracticable to William Tell
and his noble auxiliaries, since their views were limit
ed to the deliverance of a few Cantons of Switzerland
from the immediate pressure of an insupportable des
potism, and even the Helvetic league which was
afterwards formed was a feeble and ineffectual union
preserved from dissolution only by the pressing fear of
foreign danger. But with you and your country the
case was widely different. Instead of that feeble and
17
inefficient government, which the collisions of the dif
ferent parties have already shaken, several times, well*
nigh to dissolution, and which is actually, at this mo-
ment, tottering under the shock of a foreign war, why
did you not bestow on them a constitution which, like
that I gave to England, could control, if not entirely
subdue the violence of domestic faction, meet un
hurt and undismayed the storm of foreign war, and
even triumph over the devastations of Time himself?
WASHINGTON,
And there, Alfred, you touch a subject which never
fails to awake within me the deepest sensibility. In
the fate of that frame of civil government, and those
free institutions both political and religious which I
gave to the American nation, I cannot but feel the
most lively interest. It is natural that you should ad
mire that form of civil polity which was introduced
into England by your grandfather and firmly esta
blished by yourself, and which, after the various
changes and modifications it has undergone from
time, accident and numerous revolutions, it would
discover a mere prurient attachment to republican;-
ism, as well as a stupid prejudice to deny, now pre
sents to view a superb monument of human wisdom
and has advanced your nation to an enviable state of
power and prosperity. Nevertheless while I thus with
out hesitation acknowledge the excellence of your form
^f government and its superiority to that of any other
nation in Europe, I as freely and candidly declare
C
18
that, whatever may be the imperfections which some
politicians imagine they perceive in the American con-
stitution, I give it an ardent and decided preference to
your's. Some difficulties and obstructions indeed, have
been found to attend the carrying of this frame of go
vernment into full and effectual operation, but these
have not yet extinguished my enthusiasm in its favour.
Availing themselves of the lessons taught them by the
long and oftentimes calamitous experience of your
country, whose history is pregnant with political in
struction, the Americans have founded a government
into which are more liberally incorporated the elements
of civil and political liberty. It is admitted that this
government in which such numerous checks and re
straints are imposed upon its departments, and in which
at the same time, are so plentifully interwoven the prin
ciples of freedom, is an experiment; but it is an experi
ment worthy of those humane and illustrious sages who
modelled it, and glorious will be its ultimate success.
Should it finally triumph over the difficulties with
which it has to contend and in all respects prove ade
quate to the great purposes for which it was instituted,
it will mark a new epoch in the history of the human
kind. And why should it not succeed? Who has as
certained the precise quantum of political liberty which
may be admitted into the constitution of a country,
without so far enfeebling and vitiating the system as to
expose it to a violent and premature fate? Who has
marked the exact boundaries that must be drawn be
tween the prerogatives of the government and the
19
liberties of the people, in order to communicate stabi
lity to the first and perpetuity to the last? As natural
philosophy is founded on physical experiment, so all
political science which is solid and substantial must rest
upon moral experiment, the history and experience of
mankind. To this we must appeal as the ultimate and
most infallible test of truth. In the reigns of Elizabeth
in England, of James and of Charles, what would have
been thought of the present freedom of the British
constitution? Would not a system of government con
ducted upon such principles as are now prevalent and
familiar in that country, have been thought as imprac
ticable and Utopian, as the American constitutions are
now regarded by many of the politicians of Europe?
While we reject with disgust the stupid doctrine of
the perfectibility of man or of those governments in
stituted to control him, let us not rush unadvisedly into
the opposite extreme of denying him the capacity to
enjoy the blessings of a just and rational liberty. If we
must err, and to this we are all liable from the fallibi
lity of the human understanding, it is surely more hu
mane and virtuous to be mistaken in extending too far,
rather than in limiting too much, the principles of civil
and political liberty.
But you have alleged, Alfred, as an objection
against the American form of government, that under
its sway the country is subject to violent convulsions,
and seem to regard these as the prognostics of its
speedy and final dissolution. And where in the whole
history of man can the government be pointed to which
has been exempted from these evils? To what sudden
and violent revolutions is even the despotism of Tur
key subject, and all the despotisms of the east, under
whose baleful influence, those delicate plants the rights
of the people have never been allowed to spring up or
grow. In these countries the storms of revolution are
as sudden and destructive as those tempests which are
engendered in their torrid zone. And has your own
monarchy, stable as you represent it, enjoyed the en
viable privilege of being freed from these casualties
and disasters? Oftentimes, as you well know, has the
throne been shaken to its base, and once it was crum