any law at all, and who is to have the
benefit of all laws, and all forms of law, when he is called to an
account. For that is to let a wild beast (for such is a man without law)
loose upon the people to prey on them at his pleasure, whilst all the
laws which ought to secure the people against the abuse of power are
employed to screen that abuse against the cries of the people.

This is _de facto_ the state of our Indian government. But to establish
it so in right as well as in fact is a thing left for us to begin with,
the first of mankind. For a subordinate arbitrary or even despotic power
never was heard of in right, claim, or authorized practice; least of all
has it been heard of in the Eastern governments, where all the instances
of severity and cruelty fall upon governors and persons intrusted with
power. This would be a gross contradiction. Before Mr. Hastings, none
ever came before his superiors to claim it; because, if any such thing
could exist, he claims the very power of that sovereign who calls him to
account.

But suppose a man to come before us, denying all the benefits of law to
the people under him,--and yet, when he is called to account, to claim
all the benefits of that law which was made to screen mankind from the
excesses of power: such a claim, I will venture to say, is a monster
that never existed, except in the wild imagination of some theorist. It
cannot be admitted, because it is a perversion of the fundamental
principle, that every power given for the protection of the people below
should be responsible to the power above. It is to suppose that the
people shall have no laws with regard to _him_, yet, when _he_ comes to
be tried, he shall claim the protection of those laws which were made to
secure the people from his violence,--that he shall claim a fair trial,
an equitable hearing, every advantage of counsel, (God forbid he should
not have them!) yet that the people under him shall have none of those
advantages. The reverse is the principle of every just and rational
procedure. For the people, who have nothing to use but their natural
faculties, ought to be gently dealt with; but those who are intrusted
with an artificial and instituted authority have in their hands a great
deal of the force of other people; and as their temptations to injustice
are greater, so their moans are infinitely more effectual for mischief
by turning the powers given for the preservation of society to its
destructio