n that
they have felt with that unanimity which nothing but the light of truth
spread over the inmost concerns of human nature can create; with that
simultaneousness which has led Philosophers upon like occasions to
assert, that the voice of the people is the voice of God. He has seen
that they have submitted as far as human nature could bear; and that at
last these millions of suffering people have risen almost like one man,
with one hope; for whether they look to triumph or defeat, to victory or
death, they are full of hope--despair comes not near them--they will
die, they say--each individual knows the danger, and, strong in the
magnitude of it, grasps eagerly at the thought that he himself is to
perish; and more eagerly, and with higher confidence, does he lay to his
heart the faith that the nation will survive and be victorious;--or, at
the worst, let the contest terminate how it may as to superiority of
outward strength, that the fortitude and the martyrdom, the justice and
the blessing, are their's and cannot be relinquished. And not only are
they moved by these exalted sentiments of universal morality, and of
direct and universal concern to mankind, which have impelled them to
resist evil and to endeavour to punish the evil-doer, but also they
descend (for even this, great as in itself it is, may be here considered
as a descent) to express a rational hope of reforming domestic abuses,
and of re-constructing, out of the materials of their ancient
institutions, customs, and laws, a better frame of civil government, the
same in the great outlines of its architecture, but exhibiting the
knowledge, and genius, and the needs of the present race, harmoniously
blended with those of their forefathers. Woe, then, to the unworthy who
intrude with their help to maintain this most sacred cause! It calls
aloud, for the aid of intellect, knowledge, and love, and rejects every
other. It is in vain to send forth armies if these do not inspire and
direct them. The stream is as pure as it is mighty, fed by ten thousand
springs in the bounty of untainted nature; any augmentation from the
kennels and sewers of guilt and baseness may clog, but cannot strengthen
it.--It is not from any thought that I am communicating new information,
that I have dwelt thus long upon this subject, but to recall to the
reader his own knowledge, and to re-infuse into that knowledge a breath
and life of appropriate feeling; because the bare sense of wisdom