But, without national independence, this is impossible.

The difference, between inbred oppression and that which is from without, is _essential_; inasmuch as the former does not exclude, from the minds of a people, the feeling of being self-governed; does not imply (as the latter does, when patiently submitted to) an abandonment of the first duty imposed by the faculty of reason.

In reality: where this feeling has no place, a people are not a society, but a herd; man being indeed distinguished among them from the brute; but only to his disgrace.

I am aware that there are too many who think that, to the bulk of the community, this independence is of no value; that it is a refinement with which they feel they have no concern; inasmuch as, under the best frame of Government, there is an inevitable dependence of the pool upon the rich--of the many upon the few--so unrelenting and imperious as to reduce this other, by comparison, into a force which has small influence, and is entitled to no regard.

Superadd civil liberty to national independence; and this position is overthrown at once: for there is no more certain mark of a sound frame of polity than this; that, in all individual instances (and it is upon these generalized that this position is laid down), the dependence is in reality far more strict on the side of the wealthy; and the labouring man leans less upon others than any man in the community .-- But the case before us is of a country not internally free, yet supposed capable of repelling an external enemy who attempts its subjugation.