No liberty without virtue, and no virtue without NEW-YORK: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY WILSON & SWAIN, No. 1 MOTT-STREET. 1832. F INTRODUCTION. TO THE YOUTH OF THE U. STATES. My Young Friends : THE following sheets are dedicated to you, and for two important considerations. First-Your inexperience in the varied modes of seduction, with the honest credulity of minds unpracticed in deception, render you more especially liable to the gross impositions of Lottery Speculators, which it is the object of the little volume before you to expose, and to fortify the young mind against their temptations. Second-The rising and future generations are more deeply interested in the experiment of self-government, now, for the first time in the world, fairly testing in our republic, and which is based on intelligence and moral virtue. The Jews had their Theocracy, Greece her Democracies, Italy her Oligarchies, and France her Bloody Mobility, but it was reserved for these United States practically to develope the legitimate principles of self-government by Democratic Representation, and of national union, by independent sovereignties so uniting by federal compact, that no party to the agreement can alter its forms of govern 1 |