humanity among the German people. Why should vast whole masses bow
beneath the yoke of a perverse minority? And why, scarcely healed,
should we fall back into a worse disease than that which we are leaving
behind?

"Many of these seducers, and those are the most infamous, are playing the
game of corruption with us; among them is Kotzebue, the most cunning and
the worst of all, a real talking machine emitting all sorts of detestable
speech and pernicious advice. His voice is skillful in removing from us
all anger and bitterness against the most unjust measures, and is just
such as kings require to put us to sleep again in that old hazy slumber
which is the death of nations. Every day he odiously betrays his country,
and nevertheless, despite his treason, remains an idol for half Germany,
which, dazzled by him, accepts unresisting the poison poured out by him
in his periodic pamphlets, wrapped up and protected as he is by the
seductive mantle of a great poetic reputation. Incited by him, the
princes of Germany, who have forgotten their promises, will allow nothing
free or good to be accomplished; or if anything of the kind is
accomplished in spite of them, they will league themselves with the
French to annihilate it. That the history of our time may not be covered
with eternal ignominy, it is necessary that he should fall.

"I have always said that if we wish to find a great and supreme remedy
for the state of abasement in which we are, none must shrink from combat
nor from suffering; and the real liberty of the German people will only
be assured when the good citizen sets himself or some other stake upon
the game, and when every true son of the country, prepared for the
struggle for justice, despises the good things of this world, and only
desires those celestial good things which death holds in charge.