must govern America according to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of right, by no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant trifling.  I shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them.

The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the object is the number of people in the colonies.  I have taken for some years a good deal of pains on that point.  I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and color,—­besides at least 500,000 others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength and opulence of the whole.  This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number.  There is no occasion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of so much weight and importance.  But whether I put the present numbers too high or too low is a matter of little moment.  Such is the strength with which population shoots in that part of the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends.  Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they are grown to it.  Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more to manage.  Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.

I put this consideration of the present and the growing numbers in the front of our deliberation, because, Sir, this consideration will make it evident to a blunter discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object.  It will show you that it is not to be considered as one of those minima which are out of the eye and consideration of the law,—­not a paltry excrescence of the state,—­not a mean dependant, who may be neglected with little damage and provoked with little danger.  It will prove that some degree of care and caution is required in the handling such an object; it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a mass of the interests and feelings of the human race.  You could at no time do so without guilt; and be assured you will not be able to do it long with impunity.

But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined with other circumstances.  The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people.  This ground of their commerce, indeed, has been trod some days ago, and with great ability, by a distinguished person,[21] at your bar.  This gentleman, after thirty-five years,—­it