Grant,--such was the cry of these eager disputants,--grant that, in saving themselves, they saved the constitution.

Are we therefore to forget that they had previously endangered it?
And are we to reward them by now permitting them to destroy it?
Here is a class of men closely connected with the state.
A large part of the produce of the soil has been assigned to them for their maintenance.

Their chiefs have seats in the legislature, wide domains, stately palaces.

By this privileged body the great mass of the population is lectured every week from the chair of authority.

To this privileged body has been committed the supreme direction of liberal education.