I really believed that this would be the perfection of Government. And if all men were naturally good, as Unitarianism taught, what could be wiser or better calculated to secure the happiness of a nation, than to give every one an equal share of the power? I believed with Paine, that a pure and unqualified democracy would secure the strictest economy, the greatest purity, the best laws, and the most perfect administration of the laws. I also believed that a pure unmixed democracy would prevent insurrections, rebellions, and civil war, and that it would promote peace with all the world. True, I believed the people would require education, but I also believed that an ultra democracy would see to it that the people _were_ educated, and educated in the best possible way. Were not the people educated in America? And were we not taught that the educational system of America was the result of its democratic form of Government? And were not Price and Priestley democrats? And were not Channing and Parker, the two great lights of Unitarianism in America, democrats? Democracy then was the remedy for the evils of the world; the one thing needful to the salvation of our race. More extravagant or groundless notions have seldom entered the mind of man. Yet I accepted them as the true political gospel, and exerted myself to the utmost to propagate them among the masses of my countrymen. The Irish reformers demanded a repeal of the Union and the right of self-government. I advocated both repeal for Ireland and Republicanism for England. And in all my speeches and publications I gave utterance to the bitterest reproaches against the aristocracy, and against all who took their part. I had suffered grievously in my early days. I had been subjected to all the hardships and miseries of extreme poverty. I had spent three years on the verge of starvation, never knowing, more than twice or thrice during the whole of that dreadful period, what it was to have the gnawings of hunger appeased by a plentiful meal. I had seen one near and dear to me perish for want of food, and had escaped the same sad fate myself by a kind of miracle only. And all these sufferings I believed to have been caused by the corn and provision laws, enacted and maintained by the selfishness of the aristocracy. I regarded the aristocracy therefore, and all who took their part, as my personal enemies; as men who had robbed me of my daily bread, and all but sent me to an untimely grave. I regarded them as the greatest of criminals, as the enemies of the human race. I considered them answerable for the horrors of the first great French Revolution, and for the miseries of the Irish famine. I gave them credit for nothing good. True, they had allowed the Reform Bill of 1831 to pass, but not till they saw that a refusal would cause a revolution. They had accepted free trade, but not till they saw that to reject it would be their ruin. I had not then learnt that in legislating with an eye to their own