Historical voices

But the right of the Nation is an original right, as universal as taxation.

The right of a Parliament is only a right in trust, a right by delegation, and that but from a very small part of the Nation; and one of its Houses has not even this.

And this must be the utmost limit to which Parliament can go upon this case; but the right of the Nation goes to the whole case, because it has the right of changing its whole form of government.

The means must be an obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to make man unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts.

Those who talk of a counter-revolution in France, show how little they understand of man.

The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.

It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant.

Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it.

The enormous expense of governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair.

The Revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light over the world, which reaches into man.

The opinions of men with respect to government are changing fast in all countries.

A thousand years hence, those who shall live in America or France, will look back with contemplative pride on the origin of their government, and say, This was the work of our glorious ancestors!

The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it pleases.

He must now show that every one in the line of hereditary succession was a Solomon, or his title is not good to be a king.

The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary wisdom; and the question is, Who is the wisest man?

Burke's Book is easily accounted for.--When a man in a wrong cause attempts to steer his course by anything else than some polar truth or principle, he is sure to be lost.

It has nothing to dread from attacks; truth has given it an establishment, and time will record it with a name as lasting as his own.

The more it is struck the more sparks it will emit; and the fear is it will not be struck enough.

But from such opposition the French Revolution, instead of suffering, receives an homage.

Their fear discovers itself in their outrage, and they are but publishing the groans of a wounded vice.

It stares corruption in the face, and the venal tribe are all alarmed.

Do not its own inhabitants say it is a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common traffic at the expense of a deluded people?

What are the present Governments of Europe but a scene of iniquity and oppression?

Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.