He professes, in fact, to live in a civilized
age, and to govern an enlightened nation. I say, that if, under these
circumstances, he shall perpetrate so great a violation of national law
as to seize these Hungarians and to execute them, he will stand as a
criminal and malefactor in the view of the public law of the world. The
whole world will be the tribunal to try him, and he must appear before
it, and hold up his hand, and plead, and abide its judgment.
The Emperor of Russia is the supreme lawgiver in his own country, and,
for aught I know, the executor of that law also. But, thanks be to God,
he is not the supreme lawgiver or executor of national law, and every
offence against that is an offence against the rights of the civilized
world. If he breaks that law in the case of Turkey, or any other case,
the whole world has a right to call him out, and to demand his
punishment.
Our rights as a nation, like those of other nations, are held under the
sanction of national law; a law which becomes more important from day to
day; a law which none, who profess to agree to it, are at liberty to
violate. Nor let him imagine, nor let any one imagine, that mere force
can subdue the general sentiment of mankind. It is much more likely to
diffuse that sentiment, and to destroy the power which he most desires
to establish and secure.
Gentlemen, the bones of poor John Wickliffe were dug out of his grave,
seventy years after his death, and burnt for his heresy; and his ashes
were thrown upon a river in Warwickshire.
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