§ 3.

It is an assertion often made, as of indisputable truth, that government ought to guarantee to its subjects—security and a sense of security.—From which maxim to the inference that it is the duty of the magistrate to keep an ear open to the sayings of popular orators, and to stop violent declamation, as being calculated to create alarm, is an obvious step. Were the Edition: current; Page: [150] premises good, the deduction might pass; but the premises are more than questionable. That it is the special function of the legislator to guard every man in the peaceable possession of his person and property, all admit; but that the legislator is called upon to quiet the fears aroused by every trifling excitement, is a notion almost too ridiculous for serious argument. Consider a moment to what it leads. Coupled as are the ideas—security and a sense of security,—we must suppose that as governors are required to carry home—security—to every individual, so also may every individual claim the—sense of security—at their hands. Here is a pretty prospect for overburdened premiers! If such a doctrine be true, where shall the cares of the statesman end? Must he listen to the apprehensions of every hypochondriac, in whose morbid imagination Reform is pictured as a grim ogre of anthropophagous propensities, with pikes for claws and guillotines for teeth? If not, why not?—Sense of security—in such an one has been destroyed by the violent denunciations of some hot patriot; he wishes his trepidations allayed by the suppression of what he thinks dangerous speaking; and, according to the hypothesis, his wishes ought to be obeyed. On the same grounds all agitation should be extinguished, for there are invariably some—and not a small number either—who regard the discussion of every public question that comes uppermost with dread, and predict all kinds of disasters from its continuance. Old women of both sexes working themselves into a state of great tribulation over the terrible vaticinations of a Standard, or the melancholy wailings of a Herald, would fain have put down the Free Trade propaganda; and if their—sense of security—had been duly consulted, they should have had their way. Religious disabilities too ought, for the like reason, to have been still maintained, for the proposal to repeal them was productive of extreme consternation to multitudes of weak-minded people. Prophecies were rife of the return of papal persecutions; every horror narrated in the Book of Martyrs was expected to be acted over afresh; and an epidemic fright invalided its thousands. Edition: current; Page: [151] Credulous individuals listened with raised eyebrows and pendant jaws to the dismal tales of some incipient Titus Oates, and straightway had visions of fire and faggots; each saw himself in Smithfield with a stake at his back and a torch at his feet; or dreamed he was in the torture-chamber of an inquisition, and awoke in a cold perspiration to find that he had mistaken the squeak of a mouse for the creak of a thumb-screw. Well, here was a woful loss of the—sense of security;—and therefore the authorities ought to have stopped the movement for Catholic emancipation, by gagging all its advocates, fettering its press, and preventing its meetings.

It is useless to say that these are exaggerations, and that the alarms of nervous valetudinarians or foolish bigots are to be disregarded. If the fears of a hundred are not to be attended to, why those of a thousand? If not those of a thousand, why those of ten thousand? How shall the line be drawn? where is the requisite standard? who shall tell when the sense of insecurity has become general enough to merit respect? Is it to be when the majority participate in it? If so, who shall decide when they do this? Perhaps it will be said that the apprehensions must be reasonable ones. Good; but who is to determine whether they are so or not? Where is the pope who shall give an infallible judgment on such a matter? To all which questions those who would make the preservation of a—sense of security—the limit to liberty of speech, must first find answers.