Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/178

168 stitution, might not have been foreseen. It might have been known, that an accumulation of vast wealth in few hands, by any means whatever, would create a faction or aristocracy, which would absorb power correspondent to that wealth, and gradually exchange the principles of our government for force and fraud; but such an accumulation might not have been intended.

That part of our policy called "the constitution of the Unittjd States," was suggested by the considerations of union and peace, of uniformity in commercial regulations, and of a revenue for general purposes. To alter or destroy our political morality or self government, and to substitute for it the principle of force or fraud, was not a motive for creating the constitution of the United States, expressed by any state convention, avowed by any individual, or conceived by the people.

On the contrary, apprehensions, lest some parts of the general constitution might on trial be found to incline from our good political elements towards those of force and fraud, were assuaged by special amendments to prevent if; and by a multitude of arguments to prove, that as titled orders were forbidden, legislative appropriations of money required, armies subjected to a duennial provision, and religion and the liberty of the press secured, self government and these elements were placed upon impregnable ground.

If, on trial, it is discovered, that the slightest inclination does exist, in any of its parts, towards the elements of force or fraud, these parts violate to national intention, and ought to be revised; because a tendency towards a political point, if unobstructed, will arrive at that point. Accumulation and permanence of power or wealth, arouse and excite certain evil moral qualities, which perpetually strive to govern by the principles of force and fraud; and so far from being instruments calculated to maintain governments founded in good moral principles and self government, they are instruments calculated for their destruction.