Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/29

Rh each other; but now that clanship is melted down into one mass of civilization, and baronies into private estates, petty kingship is annihilated, and noble orders are completely sensible, that ribbon, livery and eseutcheon, are not means for assaulting kings, equivalent to subjects, castles and principalities.

Admitting monarchy to be an evil, the ratio of the evil must be increased or diminished by its quantity, and it was evidently the comparative interest of the people to diminish the number of kings, for the sake of contracting the oppressions of monarchy. In England, one king, would be less mischievous than one hundred. This motive actuated the people to assist the great king to destroy the little kings and ambition, not the popular interest, induced the great king to avail himself of this assistance. But when the petty monarchies, which had excited the jealousy, and produced the coalition, of one king and the people, were destroyed, this jealousy transferred itself to the allies. Having acquired a complete victory, they became objects of danger to each other and resorted to mutual precautions. Representation, invented by the crown to destroy the barons, was used by the people against the crown; and is now used by the crown against the people. The conquered nobility, reduced from sovereigns to subjects, became the chief disciples of royal patronage ; and having lost the power of annoying the king, revenged itself upon the people, by uniting with the king to annoy them.

The result we obtain from this short history, is, that noble orders, divested of royalties, and reduced to the degree of subjects, are the instruments of kings; but that such orders, chiefs of clans, and possessed of dominions, are inimical to a monarchy, sufficiently powerful to suppress their own. Thus these phenomena are reconciled, and the alliance between kings and nobles in some cases, and their enmity in others accounted for. When the reasons inducing kings to destroy barons and to create lords are understood, the interest of the people to aid them in the first work, and