An essential reminder from the "Muse of the American Revolution," Mercy Otis Warren. Here, writing as "A Columbian Patriot" in 1788: "Self defence is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of society can abolish; this primæval principle, the immediate gift of the Creator, obliges every one to remonstrate against the strides of ambition, and a wanton lust of domination, and to resist the first approaches of tyranny"