individual duties, rights, and charities of mankind—ransacking the deepest recesses of the heart, and seizing as prizes to her sovereign will the royalties and wrecks of human nature. ‘_But the phrenzy did not terminate here._ It was not enough that all the relations of life should merge in that of citizen: even “exclusive patriotism” was a vulgar thought. In the paroxysms of disorder, it was sometimes proposed, that the citizen himself should evaporate into a citizen of the world. The universal republic—the vast family of mankind—the deputations from the human race—became instruments with the knaves who led, and visions for the dupes who admired. There can really be no objection to this superfine theory, but that it is inconsistent with the order of Providence, and destructive of the nature of man—that it unfixes our moral land-marks—melts into air every practical virtue and definite duty—substitutes words for salutary deeds—and by directing our most natural and useful passions to objects indistinct or unattainable, leaves these powerful agents afloat, and ends by abusing them to the production of crime and misery. Such were the results of that system of speculation, which assumed for its basis the existence of a species of beings far above the pitch of humanity, and which, in its application to human affairs, reduces them to the level of brutes. ‘A sucker from the root of this poisonous vegetable is again in blossom, and threatens the desolation of the moral world. We are called upon to abdicate the right and obligation of preferring and protecting our native country, that is, of enjoying our proper advantages, and of discharging our specific trusts—and for what? Why, that we may undertake the preposterous office, and execute the factitious duty of handing over to a mortal enemy the greatness to which we have waded through blood and fire, and raising his empire on the ruins of our own. Beware, we are warned, of neglecting the rights of the adversary. It is our peculiar business to guard the rights of France.’[11]