I
am sure the natural feeling, as I have just said, is a far more
predominant ingredient in this war than in that of any other that ever
was waged by this kingdom.
If the war made to prevent the union of two crowns upon one head was a
just war, this, which is made to prevent the tearing all crowns from all
heads which ought to wear them, and with the crowns to smite off the
sacred heads themselves, this is a just war.
If a war to prevent Louis the Fourteenth from imposing his religion was
just, a war to prevent the murderers of Louis the Sixteenth from
imposing their irreligion upon us is just: a war to prevent the
operation of a system which makes life without dignity and death without
hope is a just war.
If to preserve political independence and civil freedom to nations was a
just ground of war, a war to preserve national independence, property,
liberty, life, and honor from certain universal havoc is a war just
necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in it by every
principle, divine and human, as long as the system which menaces them
all, and all equally, has an existence in the world.
You, who have looked at this matter with as fair and impartial an eye as
can be united with a feeling heart, you will not think it an hardy
assertion, when I affirm that it were far better to be conquered by any
other nation than to have this faction for a neighbor. Before I felt
myself authorized to say this, I considered the state of all the
countries in Europe for these last three hundred years, which have been
obliged to submit to a foreign law.
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