评论
打印
Liberty is order.Liberty is strength. Look round the world, and admire, as you must, the instructive spectacle. You will see that liberty not only is power and order, but that it is power and order predominant and invincible - that it derides all other sources of strength. And shall the preposterous imagination be fostered, that men bred in liberty - the first of humankind who asserted the glorious distinction of formingfor themselves their social compact - can be condemned to silence upon their rights? Is it to be conceivedthat men who have enjoyed, for such a length of days, the light and happiness of freedom, can be restrained, and shut up again in the gloom of ignorance and degradation? As well, sir, might you try, by a miserable dam, to shut up theflowing of a rapid river! The rolling and impetuous tide would burst through every impediment that man mightthrow in its way; and the only consequence of the impotent attempt would be, that,having collected new forceby its temporary suspension, enforcing itself through new channels, it wouldspread devastation and ruin on every side. The progress of liberty is like the progress of the stream. Kept within its bounds, it is sure to fertilize the country through which it runs; but no power can arrest itin its passage; and short sighted, as well as wicked, must be the heart of the projector that would striveto divert its course.
