Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/180

164 to these principles might render it possible for it to exist in an extensive territory. Whoever will be bold to say that a continent can be governed by that system, contradicts all the experience of the world. It is a work too great for human wisdom. Let me call for an example. Experience has been called the best teacher. I call for an example of a great extent of country, governed by one government, or Congress, call it what you will. I tell him that a government may be trimmed up according to gentlemen's fancy, but it never can operate; it would be but very short-lived. However disagreeable it may be to lengthen my objections, I cannot help taking notice of what the honorable gentleman said. To me it appears that there is no check in that government. The President, senators, and representatives, all, immediately or mediately, are the choice of the people. Tell me not of checks on paper; but tell me of checks founded on self-love. The English government is founded on self-love. This powerful, irresistible stimulus of self-love has saved that government.

It has interposed that hereditary nobility between the king and commons. If the host of lords assist or permit the king to overturn the liberties of the people, the same tyranny will destroy them; they will therefore keep the balance in the democratic branch. Suppose they see the commons encroach upon the king: self-love, that great energetic check, will call upon them to interpose; for, if the king be destroyed, their destruction must speedily follow. Here is a consideration, which prevails, in my mind, to pronounce the British government superior, in this respect, to any government that ever was in any country. Compare this with your congressional checks. I beseech gentlemen to consider whether they can say, when trusting power, that a mere patriotic profession will be equally operative and efficacious as the check of self-love. In considering the experience of ages, is it not seen that fair, disinterested patriotism, and professions of attachment to rectitude, have never been solely trusted to by an enlightened, free people? If you depend on your President's and senators' patriotism, you are gone. Have you a resting-place like the British government? Where is the rock of your salvation? The real rock of political salvation is self-love, perpetuated from age to age in every human breast, and manifested in every action. If