Who are you, that you should fret and rage,
and bite the chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all
nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which
empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation [Footnote: 28] of power
must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot
govern Egypt and Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he the same
dominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism
itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he
can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole of
the force and vigor of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent
relaxation in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so well
obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she submits; she watches times.
This is the immutable condition, the eternal law of extensive and detached
empire.
Then, Sir, from these six capital sources--of descent, of form of government, of
religion in the Northern Provinces, of manners in the Southern, of education, of
the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government--from all these
causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up.
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