The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

another class to be governed. Statesmen had
universally held that all men were not created
equal, and ecclesiastics had not been slow in
seconding their teachings. When from time to time
philosophers had arisen inculcating ideas of liberty
and equality, they had been branded as anarchists
by the state and as atheists by the church. Many a
time both the civil and religious powers had buried
their own differences of opinion and claims of
jurisdiction in order that they might form a union
for the sole purpose of more effectively dealing
swift and summary punishment to these disturbers
of the existing order of things. The rack, the fagot,
and all the ingenious and exquisite tortures which
the Inquisition could devise had been freely
employed to wring from unwilling lips the desired
recantation.
Prior to the time of our glorious Revolution the
doctrine that governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed was wholly
unknown in national practise. The princes and
potentates of the nations of Europe had entrenched
themselves behind that wickedest of all political
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