Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/135

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Civil Liberty, &c.
131

SECT.XX.

A fifth Mark of Licentiousness and Faction.

THE Abettors of Faction would throw injurious and undistinguishing Imputations on every Body of Men who differed from them in Opinion."

Having thus gained an ignorant and licentious Populace, as the Trumpets of Sedition; the Patrons of Faction would leave no Means untry'd to load their Adversaries with the most envenomed Calumny.

Thus if any mistaken Principle had formerly been maintained, but was now generally forsaken and derided; a Faction could not be detected by any clearer Mark, than by its Attempt to conjure up the Ghost of this departed Principle, in order to alarm and terrify not only the Populace, but the People.