Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/46

36 founded like this, upon evil moral principles, is incapable of amelioration from the personal virtues of magistrates, is proved by its steady unfluctuating course of effects in England, where its rigorous consistency, and growing severity, is neither interrupted nor softened in the smallest degree by the virtues of individuals. Martial law and stock law, are naturally and necessarily tyrants, but a man may be a tyrant or a patriot. If a political system, founded in evil moral principles, proceeds consistently and certainly in the dispensation of evil to nations, without sustaining impediments from the virtues even of its administrators; is it not conceivable, that one founded in good moral principles, is discoverable, capable of dispensing good, independently also of the vices of its administrators ? One as free from evil qualities, as that of paper and patronage is from good, would probably effect so desirable an object.

An enumeration of the effects of the system of paper and patronage, will disclose the consistency, between causes and effects in the moral world, the vast political influence of this system, and its operation upon human happiness. The first, is that of its enabling a minor interest, to guide and subsist upon a major interest.

It is not the mode by which this is effected, but the effect, which causes oppression. It is the same thing to a nation whether it is subjected to the will of a minority, by superstition, conquest, or patronage and paper. Whether this end is generated by errour, by force, or by fraud, the interest of the nation is invariably sacrificed to the interest of the minority.

If the oppressions of the aristocracies of the first and second ages, arose from the power obtained by minorities, how has it happened, that a nation which has rejoiced in their downfal, should be joyfully gliding back into the same policy? How happens it, that whilst, religious frauds are no longer rendered sacred, by calling them oracles, political fraud should be sanctified, by calling it national credit?