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No master ever had a control so absolute over the
slaves as this bill gives to the military officers over both white and
colored persons.
It may be answered to this that the officers of the Army are too
magnanimous, just, and humane to oppress and trample upon a subjugated
people. I do not doubt that army officers are as well entitled to this
kind of confidence as any other class of men. But the history of the
world has been written in vain if it does not teach us that unrestrained
authority can never be safely trusted in human hands. It is almost sure
to be more or less abused under any circumstances, and it has always
resulted in gross tyranny where the rulers who exercise it are strangers
to their subjects and come among them as the representatives of a
distant power, and more especially when the power that sends them is
unfriendly. Governments closely resembling that here proposed have been
fairly tried in Hungary and Poland, and the suffering endured by those
people roused the sympathies of the entire world.


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