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speeches of your President, delivered at the opening of Congress, in conformity to the Constitution, and in which it is his duty to declare the state of the Union, should be modified and accommodated to the ear of a juggling Directory.
And why this imperious conduct?—Why this insufferable insolence? Come thou magnanimous Republic, "shew thy strong reasons!"—Let us hear them!—
The Republic is great! Terrible to its enemies!—Beneficent to its friends! Beneficient to Republicans! Witness the blood and groans and universal desolation of Switzerland! Blood and groans and desolation, are the trophies of thy beneficence, thou magnanimous Republic.
But the Republic is irresistible to support the rights of man!—She will cause the rights of man every where to be respected!—Rights of Man! I am astonished that the utterance of those words "dont blister their tongues." Since the combination against France was defeated, she has uniformly been the aggressor, and Europe has become one great slaughter-house. Within this period, it is computed, that more than four millions of people have perished by the revolution, and this mighty destruction has been effected in ways, by means and under circumstances so afflicting and distressing, that 'tis hardly possible to conceive how four millions of people could have perished, with more infamy to the Republic.
But the Directory proclaim, Liberty and Equality. Liberty and Equality!Was the earth ever before insulted with such mockery!—The Directory, each of whom, assumes a haughtiness, and appears with a pomp and splendor unequalled by any potentate in Europe, insult the world by the pretence of establishing Liberty and Equality!
