The Speeches of the Hon. Thomas Erskine: (now Lord Erskine), when at the Bar, on Subjects Connected with the Liberty of the Press, and Against Constructive Treasons, Volume 3

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Page 499 - Freedom, they will turn their faces toward you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have. The more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain; they may have it from Prussia; but, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.
Page 499 - ... is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government; — they will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.
Page 500 - Do you imagine then that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue, that it is the annual vote in the committee of supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people, it is their attachment to their Government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution...
Page 499 - My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government; they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.
Page 141 - A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence ; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form, there is none.
Page 58 - King, not having the fear of God in their hearts, nor weighing the duty of their allegiance, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, as false traitors against our said Lord the King...
Page 408 - The power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength, and far less odium, under the name of Influence.
Page 82 - ... when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, or of our lady the queen, or of their eldest son and heir...
Page 472 - The barefaced aristocracy of the present administration has made it necessary that we should be prepared to act on the defensive, against any attack they may command their newly armed minions to make upon us. A plan has been hit upon, and, if encouraged sufficiently, will, no doubt, have the effect of furnishing a quantity of pikes to the patriots, great enough to make them formidable.
Page 408 - ... very antagonist into the instrument of power ; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of growth and renovation; and which the distresses and the prosperity of the country equally tended to augment, was an admirable substitute for a prerogative, that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices, had moulded in its original stamina irresistible principles of decay and dissolution.

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