Collusion

“ For the political criticism, which is of the boldest, passes safely enough, by being merely broken, and put into the mouths of opposing factions, who are just upon the point of coming to blows upon the stage, and cannot, therefore, be suspected of collusion. ”

“ The more common use of the term in English law was for a secret agreement between persons to cheat and defraud, but the word is now obsolete, and has been superseded by “collusion” or “conspiracy to cheat and defraud.” ”

“ But since we cannot in our hearts find one single spot of rebellion or treason, or that we have in any manner aimed at subverting the settled government or attempting of the person of any either magistrate or private man, notwithstanding the several reproaches and threats of some who for sinister ends were disaffected to us and censured our innocent and honest designs, and since all people in all places where we have yet been can attest our civil, quiet, peaceable behaviour, far different from that of rebellion [rebellious?] ”

“ This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the titular sovereignty. To charge any men with such madness, approaches to an accusation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess. But of this faction what evil may not be credited? ”

“ How often, in such states, has a false step in government, trifling, indeed, in itself, but still in fact and in truth, a blunder in one party, been the occasion of an opposition and resistance of another, and of a general feeling of discontent and a violent reaction, which have proved a hundred times more fatal and pernicious than the first occasion of popular murmurs. ”

“ But the gentlemen that rules us, have fallen upon a piece of unprecedented policy; wherein they think both to involve the nation in the guilt of their unparalelled rebellion against the Lord, by owning that authority that promotes it; and so secure their usurpations, either by the suffrage of all that own them, or by the extirpation of the conscientious that dare not, with the odium and obloquy of being enemies to authority; by which trick they think to bury the honour of their testimony. ”

“ If any ever speak again of rebellion, or of treason, and seek to break the Law, on his head shall be the blood of all. For surely woe shall come again on us. In your own behalf I warn you, and ye shall be the judges. ”

“ What is every infidel publication but an accusation against Jesus Christ, a protest against His government, and an attempt to rouse the world to join in the rebellion? "They take counsel together against the Lord and his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us!" ”

“ Fanned by opposition, fertilised by the red blood of the people, which vivifies everything on which it falls, the heresy would grow stronger, and stifle in its folds Annas, the government, and all his friends. ”

“ Claim leads to claim, and power advances power;
Till conquest unresisted ceased to please,
And rights, submitted, left him none to seize.
At length his sovereign frowns—the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate.
Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye,
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly ”

“ It is a pity, indeed, that fellow citizens and christian brethren should be driven so far asunder, and be filled with so much animosity, by such an unnatural broil. On whom does this responsibility rest? In our judgment, on those who have instigated the quarrel, on the aggressors, and not on those who act merely on the defensive, in vindication and support of the Government of the country. ”

“ This insistence upon the absolute necessity of force or coercion, upon the theory that, do what you will, you alter only the distribution, not the general quantity of force, is the leading principle of the book. Compulsion and persuasion go together, but the 'lion's share' of all the results achieved by civilisation is due to compulsion. Parliamentary government is a mild and disguised form of compulsion [130] and reforms are carried ultimately by the belief that the reformers are the strongest. ”

“ Parliamentary debate offered the means of legal opposition to those who bore no friendship to the Court: conspiracy, though it alarmed at the moment, had become the resort only of the obscure and the powerless. Groups of able men were gathering around recognised leaders, or uniting in defence of a common political creed. ”

“ When a movement of rebellion against authority is on foot, he eyes all askance, and speaks in whispering corners of secrecy, not knowing when he strikes his first blow whether his own brother's hand will be with him against the common tyrant, or against himself. ”

“ Do you consider yourself as a missionary of loyalty or of rebellion? Are you not representing your king, his ministry, and parliament, as tyrants,—-imperious, unrelenting tyrants,—-by such reasoning as this? ”

“ What—shall the traitor rear
His head amid our tribune—and blaspheme
Each patriot? shall the hireling slave of faction—
St. Just.
I am of no one faction. I contend
Against all factions.
Tallien.
I espouse the cause
Of truth. ”

“ Unillumined by Philosophy, and stimulated to a lust of revenge by aggravated wrongs, they would make the Altar of Freedom stream with blood, while the grass grew in the desolated halls of Justice. These men are the rude materials from which a detestable Minister manufactures conspiracies. ”

“ I proceed in the operation with deliberation and inquiry, that it may injure the best men least, and effect the purposes of justice and public utility with the least private distress; that it may be thrown, as much as possible, on delinquency, on oppression, on intolerance, on ante-revolutionary adherence to our enemies. ”

“ Argument they answer by inarticulate Noises, and their zeal for the Constitution they manifest by breaking the Peace. Certain to make a riot in their great ardor to prevent one, and prepared to persecute what they are determined not to hear, they wilfully blind themselves to Truth, and like angry Cowards shut their Eyes as they strike the Blow. ”

“ Let us establish one solemn controversy, one public scrutiny of truth—not before the tribunal of a corruptible individual, or of a prejudiced party, but in the grand forum of mankind—guarded by all their information and all their interests. ”

“ A tyrant or a cabal may oppress a nation for long years. Their word may be thought absolute, their power irresistible. Tyranny seems to paralyse the courage of resistance, like the fabled head of Medusa. Remove its fascination [Pg 123] of corruption, and men become men, and not machines, once more. ”

“ But be it so!—How much more then are we bound to be careful, that no conduct of our own, no assent or countenance given by us to the violence of others, no want of courage and alertness in denouncing the same, should have the least tendency to bring about an act or event, dire enough to justify a civil war for its preventive! ”

“ But to declare by authority of parliament that the offenders are so numerous, and the abuse of so spreading and dangerous nature, that the severe penalties already enacted are inadequate to the preventing it, will not this suggest to every unprejudiced man the dread, that enemies so numerous could not have arisen without previous oppression, and that abuse so calculated to spread must have some foundation in truth? ”

“ The national government for a long time was lenient, and exercised great clemency in order to give the chance to misled and misinformed men to rally to the majority of the nation, and to place themselves anew, in the path of duty. ”

“ THEY, who in these days of jealousy and Party rage dare publicly explain the Principles of Freedom, must expect to have their Intentions misrepresented, and to be entitled like the Apostles of Jesus, "stirrers up of the People, and men accused of Sedition." ”

“ The habitual feeling of antagonism to the opposite party, from which few men in a land of popular politics are ever wholly free, was reinforced by a sincere belief on the part of many that the Government, in determining to crush the rebellion, had undertaken a larger task than it could ever accomplish. ”

“ As we once had a rebellion of the clowns, we have now an opposition of the pedlers. The quiet of the nation has been, for years, disturbed by a faction, against which all factions ought to conspire; for its original principle is the desire of leveling; it is only animated, under the name of zeal, by the natural malignity of the mean against the great. ”

“ I will not admit that because a majority of this House are in favor of the claims, and desire a prompt decision without debate, it is evidence that “unprincipled men have acquired the ascendency, and knowing themselves to be in the commission of wrong they are silent.” Is my colleague aware of the extent of this doctrine? When unprincipled men, said he, acquire the ascendency, they act in concert and are silent—silence and concert, then, are to him proofs of corrupt motive. ”

“ It is, accordingly, found that in the violent strifes between parties for the high and glittering prize of governmental honors and emoluments — falsehood, injustice, fraud, artifice, slander, and breach of faith, are freely resorted to, as legitimate weapons — followed by all their corrupting and debasing influences. ”

“ From the fallacious promises, and the foolish or culpable designs, that occasioned the establishment of those nurseries of discontent, disorder, and conspiracy, the ateliers nationaux,—the steps through the club-room, the rendezvous of the conspirators, the furious journalist's office, to the sedition, the insurrection, the carnage, the civil war, the murder, the terror, and the mourning catafalk, have followed as they could not but follow. ”

“ Partisans and leaders, aiming at the overthrow of our institutions, may, while temporarily in high places, by fraud and usurpation, keep up the false cry of rebel and traitor; but these irrepressible outburstings of popular sentiment, regarding no restraints on great-occasions which cause Nature to speak, show clearly how this cry and charge are regarded and looked upon by the masses of the people everywhere. ”

“ The only—I will not say excuse, but palliation that I can find for conduct like yours is that it has been for some years past the fashion to treat lightly matters of this kind, so that men have been perhaps encouraged to play with sedition and to toy with treason, wrapt in a certain proud consciousness of strength begotten of the deep-seated and well-founded conviction that the loyalty of her people is supreme, and true authority in this country has slumbered or has treated with contemptuous indifference speeches and acts of sedition. ”

“ If, however, the times were disturbed, if the parties were divided by acute discord and men’s minds inflamed by the memories of a terrible civil war, the sense of justice was, nevertheless, not yet so much blunted by party passions as to allow the dominant party to abuse their own power beyond a certain point. ”

“ It would be oppression to do—what the Legislature could not do if it would—prevent a man's thoughts; but if he speaks them aloud, and asks either for instruction and confutation, if he be in error, or assent and honor, if he be in the right, then it is no oppression to throw him into a dungeon! ”

“ The cowardliness of men who accept the conventional lie of a monarchical form of government, against their convictions, reason and comprehension of the universe, is revenged upon them, or rather upon human progress. ”

“ Show that you hate lies, and will have none of them,—show that you will not be imposed upon—and decline to be led or governed by party agents, who persuade you to your own and your country’s destruction! ”

“ But this sect unloosed their tongues in reproach and began to admonish them, saying, “What meanness is this, and what evident treason; that man should, for worldly advantages, personal profit, easy circumstances, or protection of life and property, cast himself into this great detriment and evident loss, and embark in a course of action which will conduce to the greatest abasement and involve the utmost infamy and disgrace both here and hereafter! ”

“ To brand with the names of 'rebel and traitor' those whom you have been unable to prove rebellious and traitorous, is but in the ordinary course of official perseverance and incorrigible folly; but that you should presume to assail those unfortunate individuals, the victims of your own recorded credulity, by making a mockery of old age and of natural infirmities, which have been occasioned by your own injustice!!—such an outrage upon your audience—how is that to be accounted for? ”

“ No jest escapes the lips of one, that would badinet upon the steps of the guillotine. The mocker who would jeer at the torments of revolution, stands like a coward quailing before the impassive eye and pale cheek of a croupier. ”

“ With judgment and justice cut off all such workers of iniquity, as turn Religion into Rebellion, and Faith into Faction; that they may never prevail against us, nor triumph in the ruin of the Monarchy. Protect and defend Her Ma- jesty from all treasons and conspiracies. ”

“ How miserable to be held up for the purpose of inflicting insult upon men, whose worth and ability and sincerity you well know,—and this by a faction banded together like obscene dogs and cats and serpents, against a church which you profoundly revere! ”

“ The favourite Subject of its Clamours will be the Misconduct of Those who govern. And in a Country where Liberty is justly ranked among the greatest national Blessings, the most plausible Pretence of Faction will be, "to load the executive Power with the Charge of Despotism." ”