eed distinguished among them
from the brute; but only to his disgrace. I am aware that there are too
many who think that, to the bulk of the community, this independence is
of no value; that it is a refinement with which they feel they have no
concern; inasmuch as, under the best frame of Government, there is an
inevitable dependence of the pool upon the rich--of the many upon the
few--so unrelenting and imperious as to reduce this other, by
comparison, into a force which has small influence, and is entitled to
no regard. Superadd civil liberty to national independence; and this
position is overthrown at once: for there is no more certain mark of a
sound frame of polity than this; that, in all individual instances (and
it is upon these generalized that this position is laid down), the
dependence is in reality far more strict on the side of the wealthy; and
the labouring man leans less upon others than any man in the
community.--But the case before us is of a country not internally free,
yet supposed capable of repelling an external enemy who attempts its
subjugation. If a country have put on chains of its own forging; in the
name of virtue, let it be conscious that to itself it is accountable:
let it not have cause to look beyond its own limits for reproof:
and,--in the name of humanity,--if it be self-depressed, let it have its
pride and some hope within itself. The poorest Peasant, in an unsubdued
land, feels this pride. I do not appeal to the example of Britain or of
Switzerland, for the one is free, and the other lately was free (and, I
trust, will ere long be so again): but talk with the Swede; and you will
see the joy he finds in these sensations. With him animal courage (the
substitute for many and the friend of all the manly virtues) has space
to move in; and is at once elevated by his imagination, and softened by
his affections: it is invigorated also; for the whole courage of his
Country is in his breast.

In fact: the Peasant, and he who lives by the fair reward of his manual
labour, has ordinarily a larger proportion of his gratifications
dependent upon these thoughts--than, for the most part, men in other
classes have. For he is in his person attached, by stronger roots, to
the soil of which he is the growth: his intellectual notices are
generally confined within narrower bounds: in him no partial or
antipatriotic interests counteract the force of those nobler sympathies
and antipathies which he has in righ