democratic.  Now, it is indisputably the privilege of the citizen to express the opinions of government that he may happen to entertain.  The system supposes consultation and choice, and it would be mockery to maintain that either can exist without entire freedom of thought and speech.  If any man prefer a monarchy to the present polity of the nation, it is his indefeasible right to declare his opinion, and to be exempt from persecution and reproach.  He who meets such a declaration in any other manner than by a free admission of the right, does not feel the nature of the institutions under which he lives, for the constitution, in its spirit, everywhere recognises the principle.  But One, greater than the constitution of America, in divine ordinances, everywhere denies the right of a man to profess one thing and to mean another.  There is an implied pledge given by every public agent that he will not misrepresent what he knows to be the popular sentiment at home, and which popular sentiment, directly or indirectly, has clothed his language with the authority it carries in foreign countries; and there is every obligation of faith, fidelity, delicacy, and discretion, that he should do no discredit to that which he knows to be a distinguishing and vital principle with his constituents.  As respects our agents in Europe, I believe little is hazarded in saying, that too many have done injury to the cause of liberty.  I have heard this so often from various quarters of the highest respectability,[29] it has been so frequently affirmed in public here, and I have witnessed so much myself, that, perhaps, the subject presents itself with more force to me, on the spot, than it will to you, who can only look at it through the medium of distance and testimony.  I make no objection to a rigid neutrality in the strife of opinions that is going on here, but I call for the self-denial of concealing all predilections in favour of the government of one or of the few; and should any minister of despotism, or political exclusion, presume to cite an American agent as being of his way of thinking, all motives of forbearance would seem to disappear, and, if really an American in more than pretension, it appears to me the time would be come to vindicate the truth with the frankness and energy of a freeman.

[Footnote 29:  In 1833, the writer was in discourse with a person who had filled one of the highest political situations in Europe, and he was asked who represented the United States at the court of ——.  On being told, this person paused, and then resumed, “I am surprised that your government should employ that man.  He has always endeavoured to ingratiate himself in my favour, by depreciating everything in his own country.”  But why name a solitary instance?  Deputies, members of parliament, peers of France and of England, and public men of half the nations of Europe, have substantially expressed to the writer the same opinion, under one circumstance or another, in, perhaps, fifty different instances.]