But with regard
to a _general_ state of things, growing out of events and causes already
known in the gross, there is no piety in the fraud that covers its true
nature; because nothing but erroneous resolutions can be the result of
false representations. Those measures, which in common distress might be
available, in greater are no better than playing with the evil. That the
effort may bear a proportion to the exigence, it is fit it should be
known,--known in its quality, in its extent, and in all the
circumstances which attend it. Great reverses of fortune there have
been, and great embarrassments in council: a principled regicide enemy
possessed of the most important part of Europe, and struggling for the
rest; within ourselves a total relaxation of all authority, whilst a cry
is raised against it, as if it were the most ferocious of all despotism.
A worse phenomenon: our government disowned by the most efficient member
of its tribunals,--ill-supported by any of their constituent parts,--and
the highest tribunal of all (from causes not for our present purpose to
examine) deprived of all that dignity and all that efficiency which
might enforce, or regulate, or, if the case required it, might supply
the want of every other court. Public prosecutions are become little
better than schools for treason,--of no use but to improve the dexterity
of criminals in the mystery of evasion, or to show with what complete
impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth, with what safety
assassins may attempt its awful head.
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