I have taken a view of what has been done by the governing power
in France. I have certainly spoken of it with freedom. Those whose
principle it is to despise the ancient, permanent sense of mankind and
to set up a scheme of society on new principles must naturally
expect that such of us who think better of the judgment of the human
race than of theirs should consider both them and their devices as men
and schemes upon their trial. They must take it for granted that we
attend much to their reason, but not at all to their authority. They
have not one of the great influencing prejudices of mankind in their
favor. They avow their hostility to opinion. Of course, they must
expect no support from that influence which, with every other
authority, they have deposed from the seat of its jurisdiction.
I can never consider this Assembly as anything else than a
voluntary association of men who have availed themselves of
circumstances to seize upon the power of the state. They have not
the sanction and authority of the character under which they first
met. They have assumed another of a very different nature and have
completely altered and inverted all the relations in which they
originally stood. They do not hold the authority they exercise under
any constitutional law of the state. They have departed from the
instructions of the people by whom they were sent, which instructions,
as the Assembly did not act in virtue of any ancient usage or
settled law, were the sole source of their authority.
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