prosperous under the kings of the House of Stuart than under any
of their predecessors. Keep that House, then, and be thankful."
Just such is the reasoning of the opponents of this bill. They
tell us that we are an ungrateful people, and that, under
institutions from which we have derived inestimable benefits, we
are more discontented than the slaves of the Dey of Tripoli.
Sir, if we had been slaves of the Dey of Tripoli, we should have
been too much sunk in intellectual and moral degradation to be
capable of the rational and manly discontent of freemen. It is
precisely because our institutions are so good that we are not
perfectly contended with them; for they have educated us into a
capacity for enjoying still better institutions. That the
English Government has generally been in advance of almost all
other governments is true. But it is equally true that the
English nation is, and has during some time been, in advance of
the English Government. One plain proof of this is, that nothing
is so ill made in our island as the laws. In all those things
which depend on the intelligence, the knowledge, the industry,
the energy of individuals, or of voluntary combinations of
individuals, this country stands pre-eminent among all the
countries of the world, ancient and modern. But in those things
which it belongs to the State to direct, we have no such claim to
superiority. Our fields are cultivated with a skill unknown
elsewhere, with a skill which has extorted rich harvests from
moors and morasses. Our houses are filled with conveniences
which the kings of former times might have envied. Our bridges,
our canals, our roads, our modes of communication, fill every
stranger with wonder. Nowhere are manufactures carried to such
perfection. Nowhere is so vast a mass of mechanical power
collected. Nowhere does man exercise such a dominion over