PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoxAPARTE LAMAR
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and the people who will not use it to these ends - who will not employ it in accordance with the great, benevolent designs of the Donor - must not expect to debar those from doing so, who haYe the energy, the intelligence and the willingness to do it. A people who neither toil nor spin - whose life is leisure and whose bliss is igno- rance - can never be allowed to close to the necessities of the world, those vast and boundless plains and vilds [sic] which God has fertilized and fructified for the benefit of all. The political jurisdiction may be theirs; but the usufruct belongs to those who are willing to plough and to plant - to sow and to reap. And so, with respect to our moral and intellectual faculties. God has endowed us with two wonderful pow- ers - the mind; and the soul - which are capable of infinite exal- tation and refinment by the proper exercise and cultivation of them; and those who will not bestow this culture, must necessarily subordi- nate themselves to those who do. Just in proportion to our moral and intellectual advancement, do we become great and good, and assimilate ourselves to the likeness of our Maker; and it is to this portion of the human race-that is, to those who carry the sublime elements and lofty energies of our nature to a high preeminence - that God has decreed dominion. - Nor can any one assail the justice of the law; for it is not in the nature of things that ignorance should dictate to wisdom, and imbecility to energy. - To say that a hand-full of people- a small, unlettered community, who have no industry, no enterprize - who live without labor and feel no necessity of knowledge, might arrest, at their own pleasure and discretsion [sic] the great march of civili- zation and regeneration, would indeed be a lamentable subversion of the order of providence and a sad dethronment of human dignity. You say that this is filibusterism. Well, Sir, there are two great filibusters in this age, whose career it is impossible to check. They are now stalking thro' the world with collossal strides, and giant power, trampling under foot many venerated things -€xtir- pating old institutions, and founding new - pulling down here and rearing up there. In one word, they are revolutionizing the whole world, in a manner as if they were determined to allow nothing to remain as they now find it. These restless, innovating and resistless filibusters, are Knowledge and Virtue. They are the great Executors of the will of Providence. God has sent them forth with the two edged swords of Truth and Justice, to fight their way through the world - conquering and to conquer - until they shall plant the broad banner of His love and power wherever there are wilds to be cultivated, and wherever there is human intellect to be enlarged and exalted. They will not fire your Granadas; but they will build up new and magnifi- cent Cities. They will not murder the inhabitants; but they will teach your people the true dignity of their nature, and how to walk in the strength and magesty of man. Neither will they invade your Sover- ereignty - your independence - your nationality - nor indeed any of your rights, political or social; but they will sustain you in de- throning the sanguinary despot of Dessolation which has so long di- rected the destinies of this country; and will aid you in placing the reins of government in the hands of the happy and harmonious tri- umverate of REASON, JUSTICE and J\fonERATION. The bloody flags of war, proscription and death, they will, indeed, tear down; but they
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