, in respect to government, of the most sacred
trust. It is the foulest parricide. It is aiming a dagger at that civic
life from which flows all the social and domestic vitality. The notion, in
feudal times, had for its outward type the relation of lord and
dependent--of service and obedience on the one hand, and protection on the
other. The form has changed, but the essential idea remains, and ever must
remain, while human government exists on earth. He who breaks this vital
bond, he who would seek to have the protection to his person and his
property, while he forfeits the tenure of citizenship, he is the
_traitor_. And hence arises the essential difference between treason and
mobbism. The man who is guilty of the former not only commits violence,
but means by that violence to assail the very existence through which
alone he himself may be said to exist as a citizen, or member of a living
political organism. There is no more alarming feature of the times than
the indifference with which men begin to look upon this foul, unnatural
crime, and even to palliate it under the softened title of "political
offenses," or a mere difference in political opinions. To punish it is
thought to savor only of barbarism and a barbarous age. If we judge,
however, from the tremendous consequences which must result from its
impunity, ordinary murder can not be named in the comparison. If he who
takes a single life deserves the gallows, of how much sorer punishment
shall he be thought worthy who aims at the life of a nation--a nation, too,
like our own, the world's last hope, the preservation of whose political
integrity is the most effectual means of INTERVENTION we can employ in
favor of true freedom in every other part of the globe.

And this brings us to our fifth measure of value, but we can only briefly
state it. The world has seen enough of despotism. It is probable, too,
that there will be no lack of lawless popular anarchy. In this view of
things, how precious is every element of constitutional liberty! How
important to have its lamp ever trimmed and burning, as a guide to the
lost, a bright consolation of hope to the despairing! Only keep this light
steadily shining out on the dark sea of despotism, and it will do more for
the tossing and foundering nations than any rash means of help that,
without any avail for good, may only draw down our own noble vessel into
the angry breakers, and engulfing billows of the same shipwreck.