overnment nor
of freedom. It compels that power which ought, and often would be
disposed, _equally_ to protect the subjects, to fail in its trust, to
counteract its purposes, and to become no better than the instrument of
the wrongs of a faction. Some degree of influence must exist in all
governments. But a government which has no interest to please the body
of the people, and can neither support them nor with safety call for
their support, nor is of power to sway the domineering faction, can only
exist by corruption; and taught by that monopolizing party which usurps
the title and qualities of the public to consider the body of the people
as out of the constitution, they will consider those who are in it in
the light in which they choose to consider themselves. The whole
relation of government and of freedom will be a battle or a traffic.

This system, in its real nature, and under its proper appellations, is
odious and unnatural, especially when a constitution is admitted which
not only, as all constitutions do profess, has a regard to the good of
the multitude, but in its theory makes profession of their power also.
But of late this scheme of theirs has been new-christened,--_honestum
nomen imponitur vitio_. A word has been lately struck in the mint of the
Castle of Dublin; thence it was conveyed to the Tholsel, or City-Hall,
where, having passed the touch of the corporation, so respectably
stamped and vouched, it soon became current in Parliament, and was
carried back by the Speaker of the House of Commons in great pomp, as an
offering of homage from whence it came. The word is _ascendency_. It is
not absolutely new. But the sense in which I have hitherto seen it used
was to signify an influence obtained over the minds of some other person
by love and reverence, or by superior management and dexterity. It had,
therefore, to this its promotion no more than a moral, not a civil or
political use. But I admit it is capable of being so applied; and if the
Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the Speaker of the Irish Parliament, who
recommend the preservation of the Protestant ascendency, mean to employ
the word in that sense,--that is, if they understand by it the
preservation of the influence of that description of gentlemen over the
Catholics by means of an authority derived from their wisdom and virtue,
and from an opinion they raise in that people of a pious regard and
affection for their freedom and happiness,--it is impossible