Book Description

Excerpt from The Rights of the People The apostate Burke observes, that when the affairs of a nation are distracted, private people are justified in step ping a little out of their ordinary sphere. They enjoy a privilege of somewhat more dignity than that of idle lamen tation over the calamities of their country. They may look into them narrowly, they may reason Upon them liberally. And Barlow says, that under this prospect, every person who but thinks he can throw the least light upon the subject, is called upon for his assistance, and his duty to his fellow creatures becomes the more imperious as it is increased by the probability of success. It matters not what part of a ship you are in when it is sinking every person in the vessel ought to lend a helping hand to throw all the useless trumpery overboard, and endeavour to save the wreck. It was this train of thinking which caused me, though a feeble advocate, to contribute the following mite in defence of your rights; in doing, of which, Ihave no other prospect than that of making myself useful to the society in which I live; every citizen or member of civilized society having a right to propose to his countrymen whatever he conceives tends to secure or increase their happiness. The present is the age of political speculation; new and old systems of government are now at issue; every thing seems hastening towards an extraordinary change, and a change is the one thing needful. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.