not without the corroboration of this
enactment of the Legislature of Virginia for my humble opinions, but the
Act of Virginia is itself not without the very highest human sanction, as
I shall show you by a passage which I am about to cite from the work of a
man, with whom, in my mind, the writings of all other men are but as the
ill-timed uninformed prattlings of children--a man from whom to differ in
opinion is but another phrase to be wrong. Need I, after this, name him?
for was there ever more than one man who could be identified with such a
description? I mean Locke, the great champion of civil freedom. In this
work on government he says--

"Perhaps it will be said, that the people being ignorant and always
discontented, to lay the foundations of government in the unsteady
opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it to certain
ruin, and no government will be able long to subsist if the people may
set up a new legislature whenever they take offence at the old. To
this I answer, quite the contrary, people are not so easy got out of
their old forms as some are apt to suggest; they are hardly to be
prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame they have
been accustomed to, and if there be any original defects or
adventitious ones introduced by time or corruption, it is not an easy
thing to be changed, even where all the world sees there is an
opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit
their old constitutions has in the many revolutions which have been
seen in this kingdom still kept us to, or, after some intervals of
fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to our old legislature
of King, Lords and Commons."

Such is the opinion of this greatest of men, formed on the most
consummate wisdom, enriched by observation, during times which afforded
no small degree of experience. Upon his authority, then, that men are
not to be excited to sudden discontent, and passion for hasty change, I
assert, that there is no danger to be apprehended from the freest
political discussions; and consequently no need of their condemnation by
a jury's verdict of Guilty.

Milton, too, the greatest of poets, and hardly less a politician, was of
the same sentiment as to the firmness of the people, and thought it might
safely be left to them to read what they pleased, and to their reason and
discretion, what to object and what t