A philosophical republican may smile at the distinction by which a British nobleman saw no objection to delivering his credentials on the bended knee, but could not bring his stomach to the attitude of entire prostration.
Quincy comments on the absurdity of a British nobleman’s conflicting attitudes towards different forms of homage in diplomatic contexts.
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The seeds of this complicated machine were all sown in the Declaration of Independence; and their fruits can never be eradicated but by the dissolution of the Union.
Adams replied: "I well know this; but labor I shall not refuse so long as my hands, my eyes, and my brain, do not desert me.
If we were bound to do it, we were bound to do it avowedly and above-board.
The rigor of her system already begins to relax, and one year of war to her and peace to us will be more favorable to our interests, and to the final establishment of our principles, than could possibly be effected by twenty years of…
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