Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: veil, he might at last reveal himself in his true character—the liberator of the Roman People.10 To the valor of that ancient Brutus, Livy, prince of historians, bears testimony; to that of the present Brutus, your own experience. The former Brutus was scorned by kings; the present, by tyrants to whom he afterward became a source of fear. You have read of the former; with your own eyes you have seen the latter disdained by his fellow-men, men who deemed it slavery most base to live under the same laws with their fellow-citizens, men who esteemed nothing noble except it were unjust and arrogant. They spurned, they trampled upon the lowliness of this man, beneath which, however, a great soul lay concealed. I hereby testify in his behalf that he has ever had close at heart the end which he has at last attained." But he was awaiting a favorable opportunity. The instant this presented itself he was quick to take advantage of it. In restoring your liberty, he has presented you with as great a boon as the elder Brutus did present his fellow-citizens, when he held on high the dagger which he had drawn from the heart of Lucretia. There is this difference, however: the patience of the early Romans was taxed by one shameful crime,whereas yours has yielded only after countless deeds of shame and countless intolerable wrongs. These barons in whose defense you have so often shed your blood, whom you have nourished with your own substance, whom you have raised to affluence to the detriment of the state revenues, these barons have judged you unworthy of liberty. They have gathered the mangled remnants of the state in the caverns and abominable retreats of bandits. They have felt no shame that their crimes were known abroad. They have been restrained neither by pity for their unhappy country, n...