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PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE.

EXERCISE I.-MINISTRY vs. THE PEOPLE.

Speech delivered in the Assembly of Pennsylvania, May, 1764, on the Occasion of a Petition from that Body, praying the King for a Change of Government.

JOHN DICKINSON.

WE are not the subjects of ministers, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if they do not feel that tenderness for us that a good king will always feel for his people. Men are not born ministers. Their ambition raises them to authority; and when possessed of it, one established principle with them seems to be, "never to deviate from a precedent of power."

Indeed, Sir, it is vain to expect that where the spirit of liberty is maintained among a people, public contests should not also be maintained. Those who govern and those who are governed, seldom think that they can gain too much on one another. Power is like the ocean, not easily admitting limits to be fixed to it. It must be in motion. Storms, indeed, are not desirable, but a long, dead calm is not to be looked for; perhaps not even to be wished for. Let us not, then, in expectation of smooth seas and an undisturbed course, too rashly venture our little vessel, that hath sailed round our own well-known shores, upon the midst of the un

* Gov. Dickinson, at this time a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, was several times afterward a member of the general Congress, and lost some popularity by opposing the Declaration of Independence, on the ground that we were not strong enough, as a people, to take such a hazardous step without more certain assurance of foreign assistance. He vindicated his patriotism, however, by being, as he himself said when attacked on the subject, the only member of Congress who marched, immediately after the Declaration, to meet the enemy!

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