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"Since you ascended your throne you have been as the visible shape of
God in the eyes of a hundred million subjects. Your hands have held the
power of life and death, of freedom and slavery, of happiness and
misery. How have you used it, you who have arrogated to yourself the
attributes of a viceregent of God on earth? As the power is, so too is
the responsibility, and it will not avail you now to shelter yourself
from it behind the false traditions of diplomacy and statecraft.
"Your subjects have starved, while you and yours have feasted. You have
lavished millions in vain display upon your palaces, while they have
died in their hovels for lack of bread; and when men have asked you for
freedom and justice, you have given them the knout, the chain, and the
prison.
"You have parted the wife from her husband"--
Here for the moment the voice of Natas trembled with irrepressible
passion, which, before he could proceed, broke from his heaving breast
in a deep sob that thrilled the vast assembly like an electric shock,
and made men clench their hands and grit their teeth, and wrung an
answering sob from the breast of many a woman who knew but too well the
meaning of those simple yet terrible words. Then Natas recovered his
outward composure and went on; but now there was an angrier gleam in his
eyes, and a fiercer ring in his voice.
"You have parted the wife from her husband, the maid from her lover, the
child from its parents. You have made desolate countless homes that once
were happy, and broken hearts that had no thought of evil towards you--and
you have done all this, and more, to maintain as vile a despotism as
ever insulted the justice of man, or mocked at the mercy of God.
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