Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/255

Rh the same species of corruption, which executive patronage endeavours to hide.

A paper system belongs to the species of patronage which we have called legislative. It is introduced upon various pretexts; but its true ends are simple. These are to enrich individuals. and at the national expense, to corrupt a faction, which will adhere to a government against a nation. Such a system may subsist in union with election, but the principles of our policy cannot subsist in union with such a system.

Its practicability in union with election is ascertained in England, and by widening the distance between individuals in wealth, it has detached the mass of talents from the service of the publick, to the service of a faction; and changed election from a shield for liberty, into a keen and polished instrument for her destruction. 'This abuse is a refinement upon a late quotation emphatically proving, that the system of balancing or checking monarchy in England, is capable of producing more tyranny and oppression, than simple or pure monarchy would dare to attempt. A monarch, shielded by a corrupt parliament, may adventure upon measures. which he would otherwise shrink from. And a legislature, shielded by a paper faction, may adventure upon measures which they would otherwise shrink from. Election is made the instrument of legislative patronage, and a nation seems to be the author of its own ruin, whilst that ruin proceeds from the operation of a paper system, corrupting talents, enriching a faction, and impoverishing the mass of the nation; yet the people will be kept patient by election itself, from an erroneous opinion, that the government is administered according to their will. Against this species of tyranny there is no remedy, except that of preventing its cause, as the people have no mode of discovering the individuals corrupted by legislative patronage; other forms of tyranny are seen in the persons of kings, nobles and priests; executive sinecure and patronage, are visible; and a visible enemy may be subdued; but an invisible enemy cannot ever be assailed.