redress is in our own power and resistance is rational, we suffer with
the same humility from beings like ourselves, because we are taught from
infancy that we were born in a state of inferiority to our oppressors,
that they were sent into the world to scourge, and we to be scourged.
Accordingly we see the bulk of mankind, actuated by these fatal
prejudices, even more ready to lay themselves under the feet of _the
great_ than the great are to trample upon them. Now taking for granted,
that in Republics men live under the tyranny of what you call their
equals, the circumstance of this being the most odious of all tyrannies
is what a Republican would boast of; as soon as tyranny becomes odious,
the principal step is made towards its destruction. Reflecting on the
degraded state of the mass of mankind, a philosopher will lament that
oppression is not odious to them, that the iron, while it eats the soul,
is not felt to enter into it. 'Tout homme né dans l'esclavage nâit pour
l'esclavage, rien n'est plus certain; les esclaves perdent tout dans
leurs fers, jusqu'au désir d'en sortir; ils aiment leur servitude, comme
les compagnons d'Ulysse aimaient leur abrutissement.'

I return to the quotation in which you reprobate Republicanism. Relying
upon the temper of the times, you have surely thought little argument
necessary to content what few will be hardy enough to support; the
strongest of auxiliaries, imprisonment and the pillory, has left your
arm little to perform. But the happiness of mankind is so closely
connected with this subject, that I cannot suffer such considerations to
deter me from throwing out a few hints, which may lead to a conclusion
that a Republic legitimately constructed contains less of an oppressive
principle than any other form of government.

Your Lordship will scarcely question that much of human misery, that the
great evils which desolate States, proceed from the governors having an