l interests of Cornwall and
Wiltshire, for instance, their roads, canals, their prisons, their
police, better than Yorkshire, Warwickshire, or Staffordshire? Warwick
has members: is Warwick or Stafford more opulent, happy, or free than
Newcastle, or than Birmingham? Is Wiltshire the pampered favorite,
whilst Yorkshire, like the child of the bondwoman, is turned out to the
desert? This is like the unhappy persons who live, if they can be said
to live, in the statical chair,--who are ever feeling their pulse, and
who do not judge of health by the aptitude of the body to perform its
functions, but by their ideas of what ought to be the true balance
between the several secretions. Is a committee of Cornwall, &c,
thronged, and the others deserted? No. You have an equal representation,
because you have men equally interested in the prosperity of the whole,
who are involved in the general interest and the general sympathy; and,
perhaps, these places furnishing a superfluity of public agents and
administrators, (whether in strictness they are representatives or not I
do not mean to inquire, but they are agents and administrators,) they
will stand clearer of local interests, passions, prejudices, and cabals
than the others, and therefore preserve the balance of the parts, and
with a more general view and a more steady hand than the rest....

In every political proposal we must not leave out of the question the
political views and object of the proposer; and these we discover, not
by what he says, but by the principles he lays down. "I mean," says he,
"a moderate and temperate reform: that is, I mean to do as little good
as possible." If the Constitution be what you represent it, and there be
no danger in the change, you do wrong not to make the reform
commensurate to the abuse. Fine reformer, indeed! generous donor! What
is the cause of this parsimony of the liberty which you dole out to the
people? Why all this limitation in giving blessings and benefits to
mankind? You admit that there is an extreme in liberty, which may be
infinitely noxious to those who are to receive it, and which in the end
will leave them no liberty at all. I think so, too. They know it, and
they feel it. The question is, then, What is the standard of that
extreme? What that gentleman, and the associations, or some parts of
their phalanxes, think proper? Then our liberties are in their pleasure;
it depends on their arbitrary will how far I shall be free. I