Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness, and faction/Section 21

 

SECT.⁠XXI.

 

A sixth Mark of Licentiousness and Faction.

 

THE Abettors and Instruments of Faction would promiscuously calumniate the private Characters of the principal individuals of the opposing Party."

It was the just Observation of an ancient Writer, that "the Wicked is an Abomination to the Righteous, and the Righteous an Abomination to the Wicked."—Yet the Measures which these two Parties take, in their Treatment of each other, are essentially different.—The good Man never maliciously stabs the Reputation of his Neighbour: The wicked Man, on the contrary, delights in this most practicable, but most atrocious of all Mischiefs.—Invenomed Hints, ambiguous Imputations, private Crimes darkly alledged, but void of all Foundation:—These are the deadly Weapons of the abandoned but cunning Defamer.

Here then is a secure and ample Field for every profligate Minister of Faction: Here "he tosseth about Arrows, Firebrands, and Death; and cries, am I not in Sport?"

If a Prince, whose Words and Actions might justly be given, as an Example of Integrity to all his Subjects, should be ambiguously accused of such Things as his Honour would abhor:—

If such a Prince should be indirectly charged with Ignorance, for not distinguishing in a Point of Law, which even some of the ablest Lawyers in his Kingdom had not attended to:—

If neither the Virtues nor the Condescension of a Queen could protect her from the Insults of Those whom she had never injured:—

If any other Branch of a royal Family should be basely traduced, by the grossest and most audacious Calumnies, studiously contrived to inflame an ignorant and unbridled Populace:—

If the Servants of the Crown, and Members of the Legislature, who had legally exerted themselves in Defence of their injured Sovereign, should in their private Character be impudently vilify'd, misrepresented, and abused; and even their unoffending Families traduced with study'd and unexampled Virulence:—

If neither Age nor Virtue should be a Security against the Arrows of public Calumny:—If a Man of the most distinguished Worth in private Life, a known and zealous Friend of public Liberty, one of the Ornaments of his Age and Country, should be overwhelmed by a Load of the most unprovoked and malicious Slander; merely because he had dared to assert his own Right of private Judgment, in Opposition to the Opinion of another:—

If these Outrages should be publicly committed by some; and winked at or countenanced, or patronized by others;—surely, all honest Men ought to joyn, in declaring their Abhorrence of such atrocious Acts of Licentiousness and Faction, perpetrated in Defiance of All Laws, both human and divine.