to
whom rights are everything and duties nothing, or to whom the standing
for their own rights is the highest and most sacred political duty!
Among such a people, in times of high excitement, springs up a political
fanaticism far less respectable in its origin, and far more dangerous to
the public welfare, than the philanthropic fanaticism which you denounce
in language so nearly bordering on fanatic violence.

I am sorry to have been obliged to insist at such length upon the
simplest elements of political science and the theory of our Government.
But you have made it needful. You have put forth notions radically false
and practically mischievous on fundamental questions; and you have done
it in the way most calculated to impose on the minds of the ignorant and
unthinking--by quietly assuming their truth. One wonders to see you
apparently so unconscious of the utter contradiction between that which
you take for granted and that which, in the general consent of
respectable writers and thinkers, is held to be settled beyond debate.
There is one at least among your associates (if I mistake not) who would
be ashamed to stand godfather to your assumptions in regard to
sovereignty and sovereign rights.

It is important for one who is so fond as you are of making
distinctions, to see to it that they are just and valid. It is of
immense moment that one who builds so much on words should rest his
structure on the solid foundation of a correct and exact conception of
them. Words are often things, and sometimes things of tremendous
consequence, and none more so than those which enter into the grounding
principles, of politics. No theoretical error but works practical
mischief. No one should be more aware of this than he who undertakes the
'diffusion of political knowledge' among the people of this country.
The false notions on sovereignty and sovereign rights which you have put
forth, are precisely the ones to take root and bear evil fruit among the
least instructed and least thoughtful, the most passionate and
unscrupulous of our people. In short, it is among the lowest and worst
elements of our social life--among the sort of persons that swelled the
majorities in the Sixth Ward of Sodom--that you win find your most
numerous disciples and readiest coadjutors in your bad work of opposing
the constituted authorities of the state; and this at a time when every
good man and true patriot should think much more of duties than of
righ