At present they repose in
lasting oblivion. Who, born within the last forty years, has read one
word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and that
whole race who called themselves Freethinkers? Who now reads
Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through? Ask the booksellers of London
what is become of all these lights of the world. In as few years their
few successors will go to the family vault of "all the Capulets." But
whatever they were, or are, with us they were and are wholly unconnected
individuals. With us they kept the common nature of their kind, and were
not gregarious. They never acted in corps, nor were known as a faction
in the state, nor presumed to influence in that name or character, or
for the purposes of such a faction, on any of our public concerns.
Whether they ought so to exist, and so be permitted to act, is another
question. As such cabals have not existed in England, so neither has the
spirit of them had any influence in establishing the original frame of
our Constitution, or in any one of the several reparations and
improvements it has undergone. The whole has been done under the
auspices, and is confirmed by the sanctions, of religion and piety. The
whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character, and
from a sort of native plainness and directness of understanding, which
for a long time characterized those men who have successively obtained
authority among us.
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