There is a tree that grows in the tropics which they call the upas tree.

All who lie in the shadow of its branches fall asleep, and die sleeping.

To-day we lie under the upas tree--would that we were awake! I have heard that--in the tropics--the sons sometimes hew down that which the fathers have planted.

I would that it were so in Virginia! Freedom of thought, of speech, and of pen.

I will away with this cope of lead, this Ancient Authority, which is too often an Ancient Iniquity.