| Liberty, if I understand it at all, is a general principle, and the clear right of all the subjects within the realm, or of none. Partial freedom seems to me a most invidious mode of slavery. But, unfortunately, it is the kind of slavery the most easily admitted in times of civil discord; for parties are but too apt to forget their own future safety in their desire of sacrificing their enemies. People without much difficulty admit the entrance of that injustice of which they are not to be the immediate victims … great determined measures are not commonly so dangerous to freedom. They are marked with too strong lines to slide into use. … But the true danger is, when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.
|
