Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/349

Rh equally perilous. Every consideration must give way to the public safety. That admirable Roman maxim, salus populi suprema lex, governed that people in every emergency. It is a maxim that ought to govern every community. It was not peculiar to the Roman people. The impression came from the same source from which we derive our existence. Self-preservation, that great dictate implanted in us by nature, must regulate our conduct; we must have a power to act according to our necessities, and it remains for human judgment to decide what are the proper occasions for the exercise of this power. Call to your recollection our situation during the late arduous contest. Was it not necessary in our day of trial, to go to the last iota of human right? The Romans fought for their altars and household gods. By these terms they meant every thing dear and valuable to men. Was not our stake as important as theirs? Rut many other nations engage in the most bloody wars, for the most trivial and frivolous causes. If other nations who carried on wars for a mere point of honour, or a punctilio of gallantry, were warranted in the exercise of this power; were not we, who fought for every thing most inestimable and valuable to mankind, justified in using it? Our finances were in a more distressing situation than theirs at this awful period of our existence. Our war was in opposition to the most grievous oppression—we resisted, and our resistance was approved and blessed by heaven. The most illustrious men who have considered human affairs, when they have revolved human rights, and considered how far a nation is warranted to act in cases of emergency, declare that the only ingredient essential to the rectitude and validity of its measures is, that they be for the public good. I need hardly observe