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I hold agitation to be essential, not only to the obtaining of good and just measures, but to the existence of a free Government itself. If you choos… - Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
" "I hold agitation to be essential, not only to the obtaining of good and just measures, but to the existence of a free Government itself. If you choose to adopt the principle of Bishop Horsley, that the people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them, then, indeed, you may deprecate agitation; but, while we live in a free country, and under a free Government, your deprecation is vain and untenable... I say that the slave-trade would never have been abolished without agitation. I say that slavery would never have been abolished without agitation... What is agitation when it is examined, but the mode in which the people in the great outer assembly debate?
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About Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a nineteenth century British poet, historian and Whig politician.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Native Name:
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1. Baron Macaulay of Rothley
Alternative Names:
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay
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Thomas Babington Macaulay
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Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay
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Additional quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay
Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the despotism of St. Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in some hypothetical case, be the best possible.
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