You give, as you ought to do, weight
only to the former. What I have always thought of the matter is
this,--that the most poor, illiterate, and uninformed creatures upon
earth are judges of a _practical_ oppression. It is a matter of feeling;
and as such persons generally have felt most of it, and are not of an
over-lively sensibility, they are the best judges of it. But for _the
real cause_, or _the appropriate remedy_, they ought never to be called
into council about the one or the other. They ought to be totally shut
out: because their reason is weak; because, when once roused, their
passions are ungoverned; because they want information; because the
smallness of the property which individually they possess renders them
less attentive to the consequence of the measures they adopt in affairs
of moment. When I find a great cry amongst the people who speculate
little, I think myself called seriously to examine into it, and to
separate the real cause from the ill effects of the passion it may
excite, and the bad use which artful men may make of an irritation of
the popular mind.
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