Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/166

156 ent sides in a civil war to save the estate, though felt by the parties, they balance each other in the controversy. It is necessary to understand thoroughly the ground of the controversy between "the philosophy and policy" of the United States, and of "ancient schools and modern universities," to discover wherein the darkness of the one, and the light of the other, called the old, and the new school, consisted. For this purpose, let us divest our minds of all perplexing modifications of the one, the few and the many; of political terms tortured by construction; and of every analysis hitherto suggested, and endeavour to enlighten the controversy by considering, whether a government must not be founded in one or more simple elements, capable of ascertaining its nature, with great exactness.

These consist, we believe, of fraud, force and reason; the term reason, being considered as conveying an idea of a nation governed by its own will, or of self government. The element of the Roman government was first fraud, and then force. The fraud consisted of the use made of superstition, and of the privileges, pillage and usurpations of the nobility. The indignation excited by this element, was artfully managed by Julius and Augustus, to substitute the element of force for that of fraud. The government was called a republick, both before and after its elemental principle had changed; and yet neither of its elemental peinciples resembled the clement of reason, national will or self government.

The catalogue of Italian republicks exhibits but one case resembling the Roman, which these little governments were frequently attempting to imitate. A variety exists in occasional acquisitions of superiority by the people; but these left the government upon its old element, because noble orders still existed; or because the division of election was wanting to prevent tumult and violence; or because election conveyed so much power as to induce the officer to practice fraud or force. So long as feudal tenure, superstition and ignorance flourished in England, the clement of its government was a mixture of fraud and force. And here is