Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/36

26 stock of renown, talents or wealth, within the compass of a society, was the moral cause which supported the aristocracies of the first and second ages; when the cause ceased, the effects ceased also; and the aristocracies of superstition and the feudal system disappeared. But this effect may be revived by reviving its cause. A monopoly by a few, of renown, talents or- wealth, may be reproduced, by superstition, conquest or fraud; and the question is, whether this would be advisable, for the sake of trying the efficacy of his system.

We must turn our eyes once more towards England, in order to illustrate the necessity for this reproduction, as the only means of erecting an aristocracy. We see there a chamber of nobility. But where is its exclusive renown? Vanished with superstition and entails. Where are its exclusive talents? Buried by the art of printing in the same grave with ignorance. Where is its exclusive wealth? Pouring through the sluices of dissipation, opened by alienation and commerce. And where is its heroism? Consecrated in the temple of luxury. These elements of aristocracy are gone, and the spectre only remains, to assail our fears in behalf of the system I am contesting. But the system of patronage and paper has reproduced a monopoly of wealth. What! have Pylades and Orestes at length quarrelled, and does one adhere to the English peerage, whilst the other deserts to this English system?

This apparition of aristocracy is not however devoid of malignity, arising from its privilege of uttering legislative incantations. As to that kind of ambition which impels heroes to the perpetration of crimes; as to those enterprises which disturb nations, and excite the jealousy of kings, the innocence of the English nobility is incontestable. Therefore these nobles are no longer jealous of the king, nor the king of them. And however speciously the system of king, lords and commons, is attempted to be filtered by the supposition of a mutual jealousy; however correctly the fact might have warranted such a supposition, when English