April 1807

Lawyers judged

All this is so much declaration of the rights of man - All this is Give us our rights. Whosoever quitting the ground of utility talks of rights as against the sovereign authority of /in/ the state for the time being does as much as to say to the people - Ye who read this, if the measure thus opposed be persevered in - take up arms rather than submitt to it. This is the difference between the language of /in which/ every thing /point/ is argued on the ground of their argument the ground of right.

The bonâ fide arguers in this [...?] are men in whom will is /whose/ strong and understanding weak: the malâ fide arguers are those who observing the deception into which those others are led by the strength of the will and the weakness of their understanding, take advantage of it for their own sinister ends.

Thus employed - employed against the legislature the use of the word right is a pretence for being [...?], and violent and obstinate: a pretence /an apology or[?] justification/ for the endeavour to excite the [...?] or greater and more mischievous heat and virtue[?] and obstinacy in other men.

Such sort of language /argument/ is well suited to the character and purposes of the wicked: it lends a sanction to violence - and exemption then from the shame of heaven, no rational argument to adduce, where no argument is to be found /the case is such as not to afford any //render it impossible/.

It is equally well suited to the purposes of the weak. It saves them the avowal of their own importance: it exempts them from an obligation they are unable to fulfill.

It is the nature of an argument on the ground of extending to call for an enunciation[?] /statement/ of the advantages and disadvantages no both sides. It is in the nature of an argument on the ground of right [...?...?] such statements such disquisitions - to protect against them as inadmissible.

[...?] thing is then to be done by violence and clamour, by repetition /exposition/ of the same obstinacy and overbearingness /obstinate and overbearing [...?]/ in other words. Right, right, right! Give us our right, our rights are violated our fundamental laws are broken! to arms, to arms! Such is the language of the weak in understanding, because to use it requires not that strength of understanding which they have not: the strength of will which they have is sufficient. It puts /places/ all men upon a level [...?] with no other difference than that which strength of [...?], or arms or [...?] may create.