1820. Octr 19

Spanish liberticide measures

14

Letter 2. Public Discussion

14

It is upon this principle alone that the /what/ change distinguished in England by the name of the Revolution ever was or ever could or can be justified. It is upon this principle alone that the late change (by whatever name called /call it Revolution or whatever else/) in Spain can be justified. No such past change can therefore be justified but upon that principle of eventual resistance by which all future Revolutions in case of like exigency are justified. It is therefore of the essence of every government that is not despotic, to foresee, and not only tolerate but cherish, a disposition to eventual resistance. For this purpose two instruments are necessary to be kept in activity /operation/ – instruction and excitation: instruction that the people may be in possession of apt and adequate notions relative to the demand and means for /of/ such eventual resistance: excitation that a disposition may be kept on foot, ready at all times upon the intervention of an adequate occasion to be converted into act. Now Of this instruction and this dispostion is the use confined to the opposing to misrule when arrived at an intolerable altitude /screwed up to an intolerable height/ that sweeping remedy which is applied by a Revolutionary change. For the disposition can not be kept alive, without manifesting on the part of the people a force of such a magnitude as to operate as a check to each instance of attempted or meditated misrule, and that to a greater or less degree serve for the prevention of it.