Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/357

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
315

terous, and unjust. They who get wealth and power from the people, who drive them like cattle to slaughter or to market, "and levy cruel wars, wasting the earth;" they who wallow in luxury, while the people are "steeped in poverty to the very lips," and bowed to the earth with unremitting labour, can have but little sympathy with those whose loss of liberty and property is their gain. What is it that the wealth of thousands is composed of? The tears, the sweat, and blood of millions. What is it that constitutes the glory of the Sovereigns of the earth? To have millions of men their slaves. Wherever the Government does not emanate (as in our own excellent Constitution) from the people, the principle of the Government, the esprit de corps, the point of honour, in all those connected with it, and raised by it to privileges above the law and above humanity, will be hatred to the people. Kings who would be thought to reign in contempt of the people, will shew their contempt of them in every act of their lives. Parliaments, not chosen by the people, will only be the instruments of Kings, who do not reign in the hearts of the people, "to betray the cause of the people." Ministers, not responsible to the people, will squeeze the last shilling out of them. Charity begins at home, is a maxim as true of Governments as of individuals. When the English Parliament insisted on its right of taxing the Americans without their consent, it was not from an apprehension that the Americans would, by being left to themselves, lay such heavy duties on their own produce and manufactures, as would afflict the generosity of the mother-country, and put the mild paternal sentiments of Lord North to the blush. If any future King of England should keep a wistful eye on the map of that country, it would rather be to hang it up as a trophy of legitimacy, and to "punish the last successful example of a democratic rebellion," than from any yearnings of fatherly goodwill to the American people, or from finding his "large heart" and capacity for good government, "confined in too narrow room" in the united kingdoms of Great Britain, Ireland, and Hanover. If Ferdinand VII. refuses the South