Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness, and faction/Section 20

 

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.

If on This Pretence, any Men should attempt to revive Animosities which Time had bury'd;—should attempt to divide and distract the Subjects of an united Kingdom, whose common Welfare depended on their Union;—should revile all Men without Distinction, who were born in a certain District; and indiscriminately endeavour to exclude them from a Participation of those public Trusts, Honours, and Emoluments, to which, with the rest of their Fellow-Subjects, they might stand intitled by their Capacity or Virtue:—Who would not discover, in this unequal Conduct, a clear and distinctive Mark of Licentiousness and Faction?

Again: If ever there had been a Time, when All who presumed to dissent in any Degree from those in Power, were indiscriminately and unjustly branded with the Name of Jacobite or Tory;—and if These very Men who had bestowed such Appellations should now deal them as freely round, on All who assent to Those in Power:—This were surely a clear Indication, that the Spirit of Faction were abroad.

But if, in the Course of political Revolutions, some of these Men's former Adherents should now be their Adversaries; and some former Adversaries should now be their Adherents; another characteristic Circumstance would arise: For Those whom they had once reviled, they would now applaud, as being the Friends of Liberty; and Those whom they had formerly applauded, they would now revile, as having become Jacobites or Tories.—Such a Conduct, and such Names thus arbitrarily imposed, however speciously coloured over by the Pretence and Cry of Liberty, might seem to stand, with all impartial Judges, as a clear Mark of Licentiousness and Faction.

The Views of such Men would be still more apparent, should they insinuate, that the Prince received Those very Men as his Ministers and Favourites, whose Principles tended to the Subversion of his Throne and Family. This Insinuation, indeed, would not so much merit Detestation, as Contempt and Ridicule.