He
is, however, far from accusing them, in this variation, of the smallest
degree of inconsistency. He is persuaded that they are totally
indifferent at which end they begin the demolition of the Constitution.
Some are for commencing their operations with the destruction of the
civil powers, in order the better to pull down the ecclesiastical,--some
wish to begin with the ecclesiastical, in order to facilitate the ruin
of the civil; some would destroy the House of Commons through the crown,
some the crown through the House of Commons, and some would overturn
both the one and the other through what they call the people. But I
believe that this injured writer will think it not at all inconsistent
with his present duty or with his former life strenuously to oppose all
the various partisans of destruction, let them begin where or when or
how they will. No man would set his face more determinedly against those
who should attempt to deprive them, or any description of men, of the
rights they possess. No man would be more steady in preventing them from
abusing those rights to the destruction of that happy order under which
they enjoy them.
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