Twenty-five millions of Frenchmen have felt that they could have no security for their liberties under any modification of monarchical power. They have in consequence unanimously chosen a Republic. You cannot but observe from that they have only exercised that right in which, by your own confession, liberty essentially resides. Slavery is a bitter and a poisonous draught. We have but one consolation under it, that a Nation may dash the cup to the ground when she pleases. Do not imagine that by taking from its bitterness you weaken its deadly quality; no, by rendering it more palatable you contribute to its power of destruction. We submit without repining to the chastisement of Providence, aware that we are creatures, that opposition is vain and remonstrance impossible. But when redress is in our own power and resistance is rational, we suffer with the same humility from beings like ourselves, because we are taught from infancy that we were born in a state of inferiority to our oppressors, that they were sent into the world to scourge, and we to be scourged. Accordingly we see the bulk of mankind, actuated by these fatal prejudices, even more ready to lay themselves under the feet of the great than the great are to trample upon them.

With settling judgements now of what would last

And what would disappear; prepared to find

Ambition, folly, madness, in the men

Who thrust themselves upon this passive world

As Rulers of the world; to see in these,

Even when the public welfare is their aim,

Plans without thought, or bottomed on false thought

And false philosophy; having brought to test

Of solid life and true result the books

Of modern statists, and thereby perceived

The utter hollowness of what we name

'The Wealth of Nations', where alone that wealth

Is lodged, and how increased; and having gained

A more judicious knowledge of what makes

The dignity of individual man,

Of man, no composition of the thought,

Abstraction, shadow, image, but the man

Of whom we read, the man whom we behold

With our eyes - I could not but inquire -

Not with less interest than heretofore,

But greater, though in spirit more subdued -

Why is this glorious creature to be found

One only in ten thousand? What one is,

Why may not many be? What bars are thrown

By Nature in the way of such a hope?

Our animal wants and the necessities

Which they impose, are these the obstacles?

If not, then others vanish into air.

Such meditations bred in anxious wish

To ascertain how much of real worth

And genuine knowledge, and true power of mind

Did at this day exist in those who lived

By bodily labour, labour far exceeding

Their due proportion, under all the weight

Of that injustice which upon ourselves

By composition of society

Ourselves entail.