Page:Conciones ad populum. Or, Addresses to the people (IA concionesadpopul00cole).pdf/42

 a Patriot. The most consummate pride reigns in your heart, the pride of Birth, of Riches, and of Talents. With this triple pride, a man never sincerely believes the doctrine of Equality: he may repeat its dogmas, but efficient Faith is not in him." Preface to Briffot's Travels in America.

You reply to Brissot, that these luxuries are the employment of industry, and the best means of circulating your property. Be it so, Renounce then the proud pretensions of democracy; do not profess Tenets which it is impossible for you surrounded by all the symbols of superiority to wish realized. But you plead, it seems, for equalization of Rights, not of Condition. O mockery! All that can delight the poor man's senses or strengthen his understanding, you preclude; yet with generous condescension you would bid him exclaim "{sc|Liberty}} and !" because, forsooth, he should possess the same Right to an Hovel which you claim to a Palace. This the Laws have already given. And what more do you promise?

A system of fundamental Reform will scarcely be effected by massacres mechanized into Revolution. Yet rejected intreaty leads in its consequences to fierce coercion. And much as we