ive to them? For my part, I have reason to believe their
opinions and inclinations in that respect are various, exactly like
those of other men; and if they lean more to the crown than I and than
many of you think _we_ ought, we must remember that he who aims at
another's life is not to be surprised, if he flies into any sanctuary
that will receive him. The tenderness of the executive power is the
natural asylum of those upon whom the laws have declared war; and to
complain that men are inclined to favor the means of their own safety is
so absurd, that one forgets the injustice in the ridicule.

I must fairly tell you, that so far as my principles are concerned,
(principles that I hope will only depart with my last breath,) that I
have no idea of a liberty unconnected with honesty and justice. Nor do I
believe that any good constitutions of government, or of freedom, can
find it necessary for their security to doom any part of the people to a
permanent slavery. Such a constitution of freedom, if such can be, is in
effect no more than another name for the tyranny of the strongest
faction; and factions in republics have been, and are, full as capable
as monarchs of the most cruel oppression and injustice. It is but too
true, that the love, and even the very idea, of genuine liberty is
extremely rare. It is but too true that there are many whose whole
scheme of freedom is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence. They
feel themselves in a state of thraldom, they imagine that their souls
are cooped and cabined in, unless they have some man or some body of men
dependent on their mercy. This desire of having some one below them
descends to those who are the very lowest of all; and a Protestant
cobbler, debased by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling
church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone that the
peer whose footman's instep he measures is able to keep his chaplain
from a jail. This disposition is the true source of the passion which
many men in very humble life have taken to the American war. _Our_
subjects in America; _our_ colonies; _our_ dependants. This lust of
party power is the liberty they hunger and thirst for; and this Siren
song of ambition has charmed ears that one would have thought were never
organized to that sort of music.

This way of _proscribing the citizens by denominations and general
descriptions_, dignified by the name of reason of state, and security
for cons