What should hinder Mr. Burke, if he thought this temper
likely at one time or other to prevail in our country, from exposing to
a multitude eager to game the false calculations of this lottery of
fraud?
I allow, as I ought to do, for the effusions which come from a _general_
zeal for liberty. This is to be indulged, and even to be encouraged, as
long as _the question is general_. An orator, above all men, ought to be
allowed a full and free use of the praise of liberty. A commonplace in
favor of slavery and tyranny, delivered to a popular assembly, would
indeed be a bold defiance to all the principles of rhetoric. But in a
question whether any particular Constitution is or is not a plan of
rational liberty, this kind of rhetorical flourish in favor of freedom
in general is surely a little out of its place. It is virtually a
begging of the question. It is a song of triumph before the battle.
"But Mr. Fox does not make the panegyric of the new Constitution; it is
the destruction only of the absolute monarchy he commends." When that
nameless thing which has been lately set up in France was described as
"the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had been
erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country," it
might at first have led the hearer into an opinion that the construction
of the new fabric was an object of admiration, as well as the demolition
of the old.
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