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will be the Government of France. France! whose crimes and miseries posterity will impute to us. France! to whom posterity will impute their virtues and their happiness.
Government over the people is known by the name of Despotism, or arbitrary Government: which term does not necessarily imply that one man possesses exclusively the power and direction of the state, for this is no where the case. The Grand Seignior has his Divan:[1] nor does even the King of Spain dare act in direct opposition to the withes of the Priests and Grandees; who in every country influence the measures of the Government, and partake in its rapine. Despotism is that Government, in which the people at large have no voice in the legislature, and possess no other safe or established mode of political interference: in few words, where the majority are always acted upon, never acting.
The
- ↑ In reality the Government of Turkey is more free in its forms than the British. They have a Constitution, which determines the rights of the subject and of the Emperor; I mean, the Koran: and they have a grand national council, called, the Ulama, composed of some taken from the people, and of others, the Moulahs, the hereditary Counsellors of the state. If the grand Seignior violate the Constitution, the Ulama have the right of deposing him: and without a decree of the Ulama he cannot be deposed.
