Page:Emancipate your colonies!.djvu/10

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You choose your own government, why are not other people to choose theirs? Do you seriously mean to govern the world, and do you call that liberty? What is become of the rights of men? Are you the only men who have rights? Alas! my fellow citizens, have you two measures?

Oh! but they are but a part of the empire, and a part must be governed by the whole.—Part of the empire, say you? Yes, in point of fact, they certainly are, or at least were. Yes: so was New-York a part of the British empire, while the British army garrisoned it: so were Longwy and Verdun parts of the Prussian or the Austrian empire t'other day: that you have, or at least had possession of them is out of dispute: the question is, whether you now ought to have it?

Yes, you have, or had it: but whence came it to you? Whence, but from the hand of despotism. Think how you have dealt by them. One common Bastile inclosed them and you. You knock down the jailor, you let youselves out, you keep them in, and put yourselves into his place.

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