for themselves.

For my part, I desire to see the time when education--and by its means
morality, sobriety, enterprise, and industry--shall become much more
general than at present; and should be gratified to have it in my power
to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might
have a tendency to accelerate that happy period.

With regard to existing laws, some alterations are thought to be
necessary. Many respectable men have suggested that our estray laws--the
law respecting the issuing of executions, the road law, and some
others--are deficient in their present form, and require alterations.
But considering the great probability that the framers of those laws
were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them, unless
they were first attacked by others, in which case I should feel it both
a privilege and a duty to take that stand which, in my view, might tend
to the advancement of justice.

But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Considering the great degree of
modesty which should always attend youth, it is probable I have already
been more presuming than becomes me. However, upon the subjects of which
I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in
regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is
better only to be sometimes right than at all times wrong, so soon as I
discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready to renounce them.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or
not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being
truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their
esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be