Perhaps, however, the
following passage, in a previous part of the work, was designed to
meet their case:--
"It is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all
people are equally entitled to liberty. It is a reward to be
earned, not a blessing to be gratuitously lavished on all
alike;--a reward reserved for the intelligent, the
patriotic, the virtuous, and deserving; and not a boon to be
bestowed on a people too ignorant, degraded, and vicious to
be capable either of appreciating or of enjoying it."
Mr. Calhoun does not tell us who is to _bestow_ this precious boon. He
afterwards remarks, that the progress of a people "rising" to the
point of civilization which entitles them to freedom, is "necessarily
slow." How very slow, then, it must be, when the means of civilization
are forbidden to them by law!
With his remarks upon England, Mr. Calhoun terminates his discussion
of the theory of government. Let us grant all that he claims for it,
and see to what it conducts us. Observe that his grand position is,
that a "numerical majority," like all other sovereign powers, will
certainly tyrannize if it can.
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