clique o' tricksters?"

The old man stretched out his hands above the Valley. "What are ye
doing with y'r freedom, the freedom that the children o' light prayed
for and fought for and died for? When there's one law for the rich and
another for the poor, when ye have to bribe y'r own self-elected rulers
to do y'r wull, where is y'r freedom different from the freedom in
France before the Revolution? Is it not written 'my house shall be for
all nations; but ye have made it a den of thieves?' Ye have what all
the nations of the earth have bled for, what prophets have prayed for,
and patriots died for; and all the world is looking on asking,
sneering, scoffing, saying ye pervert the Ark o' the Covenant of God,
saying lawlessness stalks under y'r banners, saying y' wrest the
judgment to the highest bidder, aye to the supreme fountain head o' y'r
courts! The fate o' this land, boys! Them's the stakes I'd play for,
if I had lusty blows to spare. I'd up--I'd up--I'd strip me naked of
every back-thought and expediency and self-interest and hold-back! I'd
hurl the lie--in the teeth--of a scoffing world--I'd show all nations
o' time that the people, the plain common good people, can keep the law
sound as the Ark o' the Covenant of God; and--and--I'd hurl y'r traitor
leaders--y'r Judas Iscariots huckstering the land's good for paltry
silver--I'd hurl y'r grafters an' y'r heelers an' y'r bosses an' y'r
strumpet justices, who sell a verdict like a harlot, I'd hurl them to
the bottom of Hell! An' may Hell be both deep and hot--old fashioned
extra for the pack of them!"

He shook his trembling fist at the vacuous air. "Fight--right--might!
I'd paint the words in letters o' blood till they awakened this land
like the fiery cross of old! I'd fight--fight--fight till they had to
kill every man o' my kind before I'd down! Before I'd see y'r law