... "Our government is a government of universal toleration. The freedom of America, its greatest blessing, secures to every citizen the right of thinking, of speaking, of worshiping and acting as he pleases, provided he does not violate the laws. The only people in America who have dared to violate this freedom are the democratical incendiaries, who have proceeded to threaten violence to tories and aristocrats and federal republicans; that is, to people not of their party. Every threat of this kind is an act of tyranny; an attempt to abridge the rights of a fellow-citizen. If a man is persecuted for his opinions, it is wholly immaterial whether the persecution springs from one man or from a society of the people,--when men are disposed to persecute. Power is always right; weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent and despotic: whether exercised in throwing its opposers into a bastile; burning them at the stake; torturing them on a rack; beheading them with a guillotine; or taking them off, as at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, at a general sweep. Power is the same in Turkey as in America. When the will of man is raised above law, it is always tyranny and despotism, whether it is the will of a bashaw or of bastard patriots." The articles which Webster contributed in reviewing the historical movement of the French Revolution were worked over into a pamphlet, which he published in 1794. There were other questions belonging to this time which grew out of the relations between the young republic and European nations. In running over the files of the "Minerva," one is struck with the predominating influence of Europe in American affairs. Every change which took place abroad was watched with reference to its influence on home politics. The habit of regarding America as dependent upon Europe, which underlay so much of the thought of the time, was not easily laid aside, and the tests applied to the conduct of American affairs were of European precedents. The secretary of state was then and long after the leading man of the Cabinet. It is indeed only lately that his comparative importance has been lessened, and that of the secretaries of the treasury and of the interior increased.