ABSTRACT
Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English constitution which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, and vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and sufferance, cockets and clearances, are what form the great securities of the commerce. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire.
