Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/497

Rh its opinions, because human laws can prevent it from thinking, by free discussion, either to fix or to discover them. Sovereignty is an intellectual political being. In Britain, it is parliamentary; in America, national. Publick opinion, ought to rule, according to our policy; parliamentary, according to her's. Had the English king possessed a power, to regulate by penalties, the discussions in the house of commons, its freedom of opinion would have been equivalent to the freedom of national opinion here, under such a power in the government. If each individual of the parliament, was confined separately in a dungeon, and brought out once a year to give a silent vote, parliamentary opinion and sovereignty would be, what national opinion and sovereignty becomes, under an inhibition of free discussion. Conferences by stealth, could be modes for discovering publick opinion in a wide territory, even less effectual, than the echo of those groans, which would resound among the cells of these incarcerated parliamentary sovereigns.

The argument for depriving nations of the right of thinking, by speaking and writing, is, that a nation may have bad thoughts. An individual may also have bad thoughts, and the same argument would, if it could, put an end to his thinking. Members of the British sovereignty, may also have bad thoughts, but they are supposed to be overbalanced by the good. Imperfect man's best prospects, must be confided to a preponderance of good thoughts, in respect to sovereignties, governments and individuals; and to deprive either of thinking, lest the thoughts should be bad, would cut off the prospect of deriving any good from the subject of this deprivation. It is moreover an ineffectual remedy for the evil, because no prescribing power can be found, which may not itself have bad thoughts. Governments must have infinitely more bad thoughts than nations, because they can acquire wealth and power by their bad thoughts; whereas nations, by theirs, can only gain misfortune or despotism. Nations err un-