Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/402

392 by considering the criminality of injuring a nation, as amplified beyond that of injuring an individual, by the whole additional extent of the mischief.

Between accumulation by banking, and division by excluding perpetuities and promogeniture; between exclusive chartered interest and general social interest; between publick and corporate, or party influence over legislatures; no resemblance in principle, no sympathy exists. They are all contraries and antipathies. A republican will deride Mr. Adams's idea, of forming a quiet, permanent and happy government. with contrary and unfriendly principles; and attempt himself to reconcile enmities, inspired by clashing pecuniary interests, at least as malevolent as those inspired by orders. Exclusive privileges, for gathering money, pro- duce parties more hostile to each other, and consequently to human happiness, than exclusive honorary titles. From the spirit of discord and injustice, infused into nations by titles, arise the objections to Mr. Adams's system. Is this spirit most malignant whetted upon the warm and flexible bosom of honour, or upon the cold and hard liver of avarice? In what unexplored depths of intellect, is to be found the patriotism and consistency of zeal, against and for the same evil principle, selecting its most aggravated forms, both for reprobation and eulogy?

Wealth, it was observed, absorbed power, as sand does water. Another figure may place the idea in a stronger light. It attracts, contains and discharges power, as clouds do the electrical fire. Nothing can withstand its bolts. Wealth accumulated by legal means is here spoken of; that within the reach of human industry, being like genial clouds, as incapable of attracting a dangerous. surcharge of the moral, as such clouds of the subtile physical fluid. Can Congress and the state legislatures, consistently with our policy, create by law, this electrical machine, able to shock or destroy our constitutions?

Words hold principles, as sieves do water. In the words therefore, and not in the principles of our constitutions,