end of Vermont. From that base he preached and practiced a little medicine (though licensed to do neither), served eight terms in the Vermont legislature (augmenting three terms down at Hartford before he left Connecticut), occupied a succession of other offices, including three years as a Vermont Supreme Court judge, and made money from his farm. Niles delivered this sermon at the North Church in Newburyport on June 5, 1774, only a few weeks after the British closed the port of Boston. The people of Massachusetts were not sure how much support they would receive from elsewhere in the colonies, but they knew the reprisal for radical activity would cause hardship for the people of Boston—the center of revolutionary activity. In this setting Niles begins with a careful, insightful, and dispassionate analysis of liberty. He calls upon the traditional American values of frugality and simplicity to see them through hardship. Then, in the last seven pages, Niles builds a rhetorical masterpiece that has to be one of the best examples available for conveying a sense of that time in our history. Even today it is difficult not to feel the power of the words. For both analysis and rhetorical power this sermon is at least equal to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Only the first of the two discourses is reproduced here.
ADVERTISEMENT.
As what was said in public on the following subjects, was delivered, almost entirely extempore, the author finds it impossible to give an exact copy. Those things however, on account of which, he apprehends, a copy was desired, have been carefully preserved. The particular expressions could not be recollected, but the ideas are not lost. Several new thoughts on the subject are interspersed.
The author’s general design is to awaken in his countrymen, proper sentiments and emotions, respecting both civil and spiritual liberty. The former, without the latter, is but a body without a soul.—As the copy is so suddenly called for, the first, rough draught, goes to the press; and the author doubts not, but many imperfections will be observed in the stile and manner; which however he trusts are less evils, than a delay at a time when every means, however imperfect, is needful, that may inspire a genuine spirit of true liberty. He feels that he wants those advantages which many others enjoy, for becoming entirely acquainted with the various branches of civil liberty.—The main ideas alone are attended to. The inquisitive mind will be able to draw a number of important consequences.
[5] SERMONI.
I. CORRINTH. Chap. VII. ver. 21.
Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
At first glance, it is certain, this text refers to a state of personal servitude, and extends to every instance of the same kind. It is also as clear that the Apostle exhorts the servant to prefer liberty. This proves that the inspired writer himself, prefered liberty to a state of servitude; for he would not exhort another to prefer what was not preferable in his own esteem. Now, if Paul esteemed personal liberty a valuable inheritance, he certainly esteemed the liberty of a community a far richer inheritance; for if one man’s enjoyment of it was a good, the enjoyment of two must be a greater good, and so on through the whole community. From the same manner of reasoning, the slavery of a community [6] appears to be a proportionably greater evil than the slavery of an individual. Hence, we may observe from the text, that CIVIL LIBERTY IS A GREAT GOOD.
This is the proposition to which I ask your present hour’s attention, and if it should appear in the sequel to contain an important truth, you will not esteem it below the gospel preacher’s duty to explain and support it in public, especially at such a time as this, a time, at the very prospect of which, our generous fore-fathers would have wept in bitterness of soul. If civil liberty is a great good, it ought to be deemed one of the blessings of Heaven; these it is the preacher’s duty to illustrate, that we may feel the obligations they bring us under—that we may enquire whether we have improved them for the glory of the giver, and that we may know how to conduct toward them for the future. Be pleased then to give your candid, close, and serious attention, while I endeavour to explain the nature of civil liberty, and prove that it is a great good.
As it is much less difficult to point out the nature of true coin in general, than to determine whether any particular piece is genuine, or how far it differs from the perfect standard: So it is much easier to point out the general nature of civil liberty, than to say what degree of it enters into any particular civil constitution. [7] It is therefore most natural to enquire, in the first place, concerning the general nature of liberty; and indeed it is as necessary as natural. For until we determine this question we have no rule by which we may estimate the quantity of liberty in any particular constitution: But when once we have found the standard, we shall be prepared to examine our own constitution, or any other, at pleasure, and to determine what part of the constitution should be supported, and what may be given up with safety. An enquiry into the nature of liberty in general, is also needful on another account. Without it we cannot see the force of any evidence that may be brought to evince the value of liberty itself.
That the subject may be fairly elucidated, I will endeavour to remove some mistakes by which it has been obscured. In doing this, I observe, that liberty does not consist in persons thinking themselves free. The Jews could say we were never in bondage to any man though they wore the Roman yoke at the very same time. Again, though a certain constitution should be contended for and supported by a majority of voices; yet this would be no sure evidence that it is free: Because an hundred may as truly tyrannize over one, as one over an hundred; or otherwise, the majority may be in favour of licentiousness. What but a love of licentiousness or tyranny, or both, [8] can induce the heathen nations to approve of their several systems of government? What but these, could induce Saul and the men of Israel to persecute David and his handful? What but one or both of these drew down the fury of Sodom on Lot—of the Jews on the prophets—on Jesus Christ—on his Apostles and their followers. What but these ever raised any one of the many terrible persecutions under which the peaceable disciples of Jesus Christ have fallen from time to time? In all these instances the majority have been unfriendly to liberty.
Civil Liberty consists, not in any inclinations of the members of a community; but in the being and due administration of such a system of laws, as effectually tends to the greatest felicity of a state. Herein consists civil liberty, and to live under such a constitution, so administered, is to be the member of a free state; and he who is free from the censure of those laws, may fully enjoy all the pleasures of civil liberty, unless he is prevented by some defect, not in the constitution, but in himself.
If liberty consists in the being and administration of a civil constitution, different from such an one as has been mentioned, I must confess, my inference from the Apostle’s exhortation is not just. For certain it is, that [9] so far as a constitution doth not tend, in the highest degree, to the greatest felicity of the state, collectively considered; it is a comparitive evil and not a good.
Where there is no system of laws, not liberty, but anarchy, takes place. Some degree of liberty may, indeed, exist where neither the constitution nor the administration of it is perfect. But in order to perfect freedom, the law must extend to every member of the community alike, both in its requisitions and prohibitions. Every one must be required to do all he can that tends to the highest good of the state: For the whole of this is due to the state, from the individuals of which it is composed. Every thing, however trifling, that tends, even in the lowest degree, to disserve the interest of the state must also be forbidden.
Originally, there were no private interests.* The world and all things in it, were the [10] common interests of all the inhabitants, under God the great owner. Nothing is to be esteemed [11] an interest any farther than it tends to good or is capable of being turned to the benefit of the possessor. But whatever has this [12] tendency, or may be thus used, is properly termed an interest. According to this estimate, the term interest includes all those various offices [13] and employments that are capable of being improved for the good of the community. There interests, being such as cannot be managed [14] by the whole body collectively, are distributed among the individuals according as they appear in the eyes of the body politic, to [15] be qualified to use them for the good of the whole. In this way every member becomes a servant to the state, and is a good or bad servant