Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/169

Rh understandings of the people, and not an allegiance of the people by force or fraud, to the will of the government. Evincing that reason, and not fraud or force, is its element.

Governments, whose elements are fraud or force, will naturally excite the evil qualities of human nature; and those whose element is reason, can only excite its good. And if every government must rely for continuance, either on force or fraud, or on reason; it follows that every government must be founded in good or in evil moral principles.

To defend the elements of force and fraud, it has been said, "that man is naturally vicious, and his own worst enemy; and that this self-malignity disqualifies him for self government, and can only be restrained by force or fraud."

The analysis contended for, admits that human nature is compounded of good and evil qualities, and hence it is not merely allowed, but strenuously contended throughout this essay, that government ought to be modelled with a view to the preservation of the good and the control of the evil. All nations have published their concurrence in this opinion, by establishing and enforcing municipal law, for the purpose of restraining private vices; and all (the United States excepted) have hitherto failed to discover a code of political law, calculated to restrain publick vices. By publick vices and political law, I mean, injuries committed by governments against nations, and regulations to prevent or punish them.

As the vices, the virtues, the passions and the interests of mankind are multiplied by civilization, the necessity for multiplying both kinds of law, gradually increases. In an indigent or savage state, few laws, municipal or political, suffice; because few interests exist to awaken our evil propensities. Therefore simple and unlimited forms of government, and few municipal laws, universally accompany such a state of society. But whenever society advances in the arts of civilization, and the interests of men are multi-