compose a great empire.  It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest.  I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people.  I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar.  I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I am.  I really think that for wise men this is not judicious, for sober men not decent, for minds tinctured with humanity not mild and merciful.

Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, as distinguished from a single state or kingdom.  But my idea of it is this:  that an empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head, whether this head be a monarch or a presiding republic.  It does, in such constitutions, frequently happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening) that the subordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities.  Between these privileges and the supreme common authority the line may be extremely nice.  Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise.  But though every privilege is an exemption (in the case) from the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial of it.  The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power:  for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who has no superior is hardly any better than speaking nonsense.  Now in such unfortunate quarrels among the component parts of a great political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to insist, that if any privilege is pleaded against his will or his acts, that his whole authority is denied,—­instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, and to put the offending provinces under the ban.  Will not this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on their part?  Will it not teach them that the government against which a claim of liberty is tantamount to high treason is a government to which submission is equivalent to slavery?  It may not always be quite convenient to impress dependent communities with such an idea.

We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by the necessity of things, the judge.  It is true, Sir.  But I confess that the character of judge in my own cause is a thing that frightens me.  Instead of filling me with pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it.  I cannot proceed with a stern, assured judicial confidence, until I find myself in something more like a judicial character.  I must have these hesitations as long as I am compelled to recollect, that, in my little reading upon such contests