Reflect seriously on the
possible consequences of keeping in the heart of your country a bank of
discontent, every hour accumulating, upon which every description of
seditious men may draw at pleasure. They whose principles of faction
will dispose them to the establishment of an arbitrary monarchy will
find a nation of men who have no sort of interest in freedom, but who
will have an interest in that equality of justice or favor with which a
wise despot must view all his subjects who do not attack the foundations
of his power. Love of liberty itself may, in such men, become the means
of establishing an arbitrary domination. On the other hand, they who
wish for a democratic republic will find a set of men who have no choice
between civil servitude and the entire ruin of a mixed Constitution.
Suppose the people of Ireland divided into three parts. Of these, (I
speak within compass,) two are Catholic; of the remaining third, one
half is composed of Dissenters. There is no natural union between those
descriptions. It may be produced.
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