Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/593

Rh the evil class of moral principles. Individuals, parties or governments use all the means placed in their hands to obtain their ends; and a dependence for defence upon a mercenary army, renders a nation unable to defend itself. The Jesuitical maxim "that every thing is lawful to effect good ends," makes every thing lawful in the eyes of governments and parties, which is necessary to effect their own ends; because self love convinces all men that their ends are good. Every principle, bad or good, drawn from the moral qualities of an individual, applies to a multitude. A power making one man a despot, will make despots of a party of men; the only difference being, that one species of despotism resembles a scorching fire; the other, a consuming conflagration. Parties clothed -with evil or despotick powers, destroy free governments with a rage and rapidity far outstripping the capacity of individual tyrants, because many men can do more mischief than one. This fact demonstrates the incapacity of the numerical analysis for informing us whether a government is free or despotick, and explodes the hideous doctrine "that the will of a majority can do no wrong," under which parties, in imitation of kings, often endeavour to hide atrocious legal violations of good moral principles. Many men can even do more wrong to one or a few, than one or a few can do to many. This analysis is still more defective as a criterion of good or bad laws, because those of its best form are not necessarily good, and no commixture of its several forms can make arbitrary or fraudulent laws, free or just. The principle "that a government and its laws must be of the same moral nature to subsist together," furnishes the only existing security for the preservation both of a free and an arbitrary form of government. Monarchy cannot subsist upon republican laws, nor a republick upon monarchical. The numerical analysis can inform us, whether we are governed by one, a few, or many persons, but its whole stock of knowledge is expended in the performance of this paltry office, and it is utterly unable to give us any instruc-