10 On Party-Prejudice. 
publics, have been so powerfully influenced by am- 
bition, party-zeal, and prejudice, as to become the 
leaders of a guilty faction. Prompted by these 
motives, they have sacrificed on the altar of their 
mistaken zeal, interest, or revenge, the dearest rights 
and happiness of their fellow citizens. Hence arose 
proscriptions, massacres, anarchy, and all the train 
of evils which lawless usurpers introduced into 
countries divided by party-feuds. 
Unfortunately, in times of political dissention, 
moderation becomes branded with the name of 
cowardice or treachery; and-none but violent mea- 
sures and counsels meet with approbation. Perhaps 
the surest test @f the rectitude and pure intentions 
of any party formed in a state, is the conduct of its 
leaders towards the moderate and peaceable class of 
citizens. For if these contending parties have de- 
generated into factions, actuated by ambition or 
false zeal, they will alike mark with detestation the 
moderate men of the community, who may have 
refused to inlist under their respective banners. 
Amidst the horrors and confusion of a revolution 
or a sedition, the voice of moderation and humani- 
ty will have little chance of being heard. In those 
turbulent periods, the most settled habitudes and 
affections undergo a total transformation. The ad- 
mirable description, by Thucydides, of the sedition 
at Corcyra, affords a melancholy but instructive 
lesson of the change wrought in men’s minds by 
