My right honourable friend, in
supporting this motion, disgraces his friends and justifies his
enemies, in order to blacken the Constitution of his country, even
of that House of Commons which supported him. There is a difference
between a moral or political exposure of a public evil, relative to
the administration of government, whether in men or systems, and a
declaration of defects, real or supposed, in the fundamental
Constitution of your country. The first may be cured in the
individual by the motives of religion, virtue, honour, fear, shame,
or interest. Men may be made to abandon, also, false systems by
exposing their absurdity or mischievous tendency to their own better
thoughts, or to the contempt or indignation of the public; and after
all, if they should exist, and exist uncorrected, they only disgrace
individuals as fugitive opinions. But it is quite otherwise with
the frame and Constitution of the State; if that is disgraced,
patriotism is destroyed in its very source. No man has ever
willingly obeyed, much less was desirous of defending with his
blood, a mischievous and absurd scheme of government. Our first,
our dearest, most comprehensive relation, our country, is gone.
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