( 63 



PUBLIC OPINION IN ENGLAND AND AMONG THE 



ENGLISH. 



" Vox Populi vox Dei." 



In England public opinion might ^be supreme was it honest ; but 

 while it is mixed up with party, and each party and partizan shall con- 

 tinue to set right and justice at defiance in forming its opinion, so long 

 shall public opinion be over-ruled by the party in power, and so long 

 shall it remain comparatively weak. 



It, however, has been the fashion of one powerful party in the state, 

 to pretend to despise the opinion to which the great majority of the peo- 

 ple continually arrive at, on those momentous questions which the course 

 of public affairs continually evolve. That party, with the most barefaced 

 impudence, would make black appear white, and truth look like a lie, — 

 would, after the public voice has passed judgment upon them over and 

 over again, pretend to be unconvinced, and as they would fain cheat God 

 of one of his attributes, that of omnipotence, so they would also lay 

 claim to another, that of unchangeableness. Trenching themselves on 

 all sides with piles of parchment surmounted with bristling bayonets and 

 open-mouthed cannon, they proudly transcribe on their banners " Sem- 

 per Eadem," and would declare themselves invincible, and shut them- 

 selves out from argument, reason, and conviction. Truth they know 

 not, evidence they would shun, demonstration they would evade, and 

 deduction they would despise. The thunders of the public voice they 

 would laugh at, and the gigantic strides of the human intellect, as it 

 topples down, one after the other, every intrenchment in which they 

 feel secure, although it may alarm and does alarm them, will never 

 bring them to confess they have been wrong. 



For this deep and terrible iniquity, this blasphemy against the voice 

 of nature, this total prostration of common sense, they not only bring 

 the wrath of the people on themselves, but irresistibly force the honest into 

 an adoption of their own abominable mal-practices. Those who sincerely 

 desire to fi"-ht the battles of the people, are forced to meet the cunning and 

 the crafty with corresponding circumvention and stratagem, and thus, in- 

 stead of holding opinions, they suffer opinions to hold them, and possessed 

 with this error, it is like a demon, only cast out with great diHiculty. 



Whatever the blind partizan of either side lays hold of, he clings to 

 it like a drowning man Ignorance of the great springs of human policy 



M.M.— 1 F 



