But
our Constitution has _a plebeian member_, which forms an essential
integrant part of it. A plebeian oligarchy is a monster; and no people,
not absolutely domestic or predial slaves, will long endure it. The
Protestants of Ireland are not _alone_ sufficiently the people to form a
democracy; and they are _too numerous_ to answer the ends and purposes
of _an aristocracy_. Admiration, that first source of obedience, can be
only the claim or the imposture of the few. I hold it to be absolutely
impossible for two millions of plebeians, composing certainly a very
clear and decided majority in that class, to become so far in love with
six or seven hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens (to all outward
appearance plebeians like themselves, and many of them tradesmen,
servants, and otherwise inferior to some of them) as to see with
satisfaction, or even with patience, an exclusive power vested in them,
by which _constitutionally_ they become the absolute masters, and, by
the _manners_ derived from their circumstances, must be capable of
exercising upon them, daily and hourly, an insulting and vexatious
superiority.
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