permitted, the process of reasoning called _deductio ad absurdum_, which
even the severity of geometry does not reject, could not be employed at
all in legislative discussions. One of our strongest weapons against
folly acting with authority would be lost.

You know, Sir, that even the virtuous efforts of your patriots to
prevent the ruin of your country have had this very turn given to them.
It has been said here, and in France too, that the reigning usurpers
would not have carried their tyranny to such destructive lengths, if
they had not been stimulated and provoked to it by the acrimony of your
opposition. There is a dilemma to which every opposition to successful
iniquity must, in the nature of things, be liable. If you lie still, you
are considered as an accomplice in the measures in which you silently
acquiesce. If you resist, you are accused of provoking irritable power
to new excesses. The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at
least, it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to
vulgar judgments,--success.

The indulgence of a sort of undefined hope, an obscure confidence, that
some lurking remains of virtue, some degree of shame, might exist in the
breasts of the oppressors of France, has been among the causes which
have helped to bring on the common ruin of king and people. There is no
safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men,
and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.
I well remember, at every epocha of this wonderful history, in every
scene of this tragic business, that, when your sophistic usurpers were
laying down mischievous principles, and even applying them in direct
resolutions, it was the fashion to say that they never intended to
execute those declarations in their rigor. This made men careless in
their opposition, and remiss in early precaution. By holding out this