And yet you are just blockhead enough to tell us that if "Every citizen"--fifty millions and more of them--will but keep "a vigilant watch and close scrutiny" upon these lawmakers, "our liberty" may be preserved! Don't you think, sir, that you are really the wisest man that ever told "a great and free people" how they could preserve "their liberty"? To be entirely candid, don't you think, sir, that a surer way of preserving "our liberty" would be to have no lawmakers at all? SECTION XII. But, in spite of all I have said, or, perhaps, can say, you will probably persist in your idea that the world needs a great deal of lawmaking; that mankind in general are not entitled to have any will, choice, judgment, or conscience of their own; that, if not very wicked, they are at least very ignorant and stupid; that they know very little of what is for their own good, or how to promote their own "interests," "welfare," or "prosperity"; that it is therefore necessary that they should be put under guardianship to lawmakers; that these lawmakers, being a very superior race of beings,--wise beyond the rest of their species,--and entirely free from all those selfish passions which tempt common mortals to do wrong,--must be intrusted with absolute and irresponsible dominion over the less favored of their kind; must prescribe to the latter, authoritatively, what they may, and may not, do; and, in general, manage the affairs of this world according to their discretion, free of all accountability to any human tribunals. And you seem to be perfectly confident that, under this absolute and irresponsible dominion of the lawmakers, the affairs of this world will be rightly managed; that the "interests," "welfare," and "prosperity" of "a great and free people" will be properly attended to; that "the greatest good of the greatest number" will be accomplished, etc., etc. And yet you hold that all this lawmaking, and all this subjection of the great body of the people to the arbitrary, irresponsible dominion of the lawmakers, will not interfere at all with "our liberty," if only "every citizen" will but keep "a vigilant watch and close scrutiny" of the lawmakers. Well, perhaps this is all so; although this subjection to the arbitrary will of any man, or body of men, whatever, and under any pretence whatever, seems, on the face of it, to be much more like slavery, than it does like "liberty". If, therefore, you really intend to continue this system of lawmaking, it seems indispensable that you should explain to us what you mean by the term "our liberty." So far as your address gives us any light on the subject, you evidently mean, by the term "our liberty," just such, and only such, "liberty," as the lawmakers may see fit to allow us to have. You seem to have no conception of any other "liberty" whatever.