Antoninus, lib. I.] Did he mistake the means of procuring to mankind what
he points out as a blessing? Or did the absolute power with which he was
furnished, in a mighty empire, only disable him from executing what his
mind had perceived as a national good? In such a case, it were vain to
flatter the monarch or his people. The first cannot bestow liberty without
raising a spirit, which may, on occasion, stand in opposition to his own
designs; nor the latter receive this blessing, while they own that it is
in the right of a master to give or to withhold it. The claim of justice
is firm and peremptory. We receive favours with a sense of obligation and
kindness; but we would enforce our rights, and the spirit of freedom in
this exertion cannot take the tone of supplication or of thankfulness,
without betraying itself. "You have intreated Octavius," says Brutus to
Cicero, "that he would spare those who stand foremost among the citizens
of Rome. What if he will not? Must we perish? Yes; rather than owe our
safety to him."
Liberty is a right which every individual must be ready to vindicate for
himself, and which he who pretends to bestow as a favour, has by that very
act in reality denied.
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