S3 



over her annihilated armies. War will desolate your 

 land ; factions will tear into fragments your govern- 

 ment; rebellion will defy your laws; disease and fa- 

 mine will visit your people. 



« Crushed beneath the assailing foe 



Her golden head must Cissia bend, 

 While her pale virgins frantic with despair, 

 Through all her streets awake the voice of woe, 



And flying with their bosoms bare 



Their purple stoles in anguish rend ; 



For all her youth in martial pride, 

 In battle slain, 

 By Cycreas craggy shore forsaken lie 



All pale and smeared with gore."* 



But you will say what others have said — 'Our land is 

 safe from this fate — our government, founded on a 

 written constitution, cannot be violated without detec- 

 tion- — our laws, within the control of the people, can 

 always be corrected; our institutions free; our re- 

 sources extensive ; our people intelligent — what shall 

 harm us? 



This very self confidence will harm, and, if not 

 checked, will ruin us. Free as we are, happy as may 

 be our institutions, well defined as may be the laws, 

 populous as is our country, there are loose and dan- 

 gerous opinions sowing the seeds of dreadfully crimi- 

 nal revolutions in the bosom of our country* They are 

 seen manifested in the doctrine that what the people 

 will, however destructive of constitutions, social com- 

 pacts, private rights, public laws, must be obeyed by 

 a public servant. Public servants owe a higher duty 

 to the law, than they do to the people. "Obedience 



aFragments of jEschylus— The Persians. 



