Now in such unfortunate quarrels among the component parts of a great
political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything more
completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to insist, that if
any privilege is pleaded against his will or his acts, that his whole
authority is denied,--instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms,
and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this, Sir,
very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on their part?
Will it not teach them that the government against which a claim of
liberty is tantamount to high treason is a government to which
submission is equivalent to slavery? It may not always be quite
convenient to impress dependent communities with such an idea.
We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by the necessity of
things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I confess that the character of
judge in my own cause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling
me with pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a
stern, assured judicial confidence, until I find myself in something
more like a judicial character. I must have these hesitations as long as
I am compelled to recollect, that, in my little reading upon such
contests as these, the sense of mankind has at least as often decided
against the superior as the subordinate power. Sir, let me add, too,
that the opinion of my having some abstract right in my favor would not
put me much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that
there were no rights which, in their exercise under certain
circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most
vexatious of all injustice.
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