Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/527

Rh the man to whom it is attached, and may die before him. The struggle to depose and transfer it is so perpetual, that an interval of repose can seldom occur; and the permanent state of a nation guided by it, resembles the temporary state of an elective monarchy at the epoch of election. Successions of authority, like the waves of a troubled ocean, perpetually roll along over each other, and the instant one is bu- ried, another rushes into its place, and speedily follows on to the grave. The excessive mortality of authority demonstrates its incompetency for the government of a being, which seldom or never dies. The longevity of a principle, ought to be equal to whatever is entrusted to its care. Can a living nation secure its liberty and prosperity by confiding it to a perishing authority? The vital defect of hereditary monarchy, is the mortality which exposes nations to the fluctuations in the characters of men, and deprives them of the benefit of unchangeable principles; and the vital remedy for this defect, is still mere adverse to the greater degree of fluctuation in the principle of successional authority. It lies in fixed good moral principles, and genuine self government, capable of living as long as the nation, and wisely confiding for happiness in that which can live as long as itself.

The whole moral world cannot afford so perfect a coincidence of phenomena, for ascertaining the true value of any moral principle, as in the case of authority. Cæsar, Cromwell and Bonaparte obtained degrees of democratick authority, never reached by others. The parties which bestowed them, by substituting confidence for judgement and conscience, were of the highest democratick orders, and proved to be the completest instruments for tyranny. The whig and tory parties of England in possession of authority, uniformly pursue the same measures; and unpossessed of it, uniformly avow patriotiek opinions, for the sake of obtaining an opportunity to violate them. The republican and federal parties of the United States, are evidently clambering towards the system for consigning