Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/599

Rh the attention to be diverted from the moral nature of the acts and laws of their servants, to the frivolous names and treacherous professions of contending parties and rival courtiers.

The evil moral qualities of human nature, as natural to parties as to man, constitute the evidence in favour of restraining them by good moral principles, and evince the absurdity, in every case, of losing these principles in a career after names, to be equivalent to that of shutting the eyes for the sake of substituting confidence for seeing. The political party which brought Charles the first to the block, made sundry good laws for checking the regal, hierarchical, and titled parties of interest, from which the petition of right for repairing the usurpations of his two sons, extracted all its merit. Yet it soon degenerated into a fraudulent and oppressive party of interest itself. This case teaches us, that legislation can change the nature of a government, without changing its form; that the numerical analysis, being unable to discern such changes, describes a government by the same name, after it has undergone a material change; that without understanding the moral principles of laws, nations can neither foresee nor regulate revolutions; and that neither party principles, merits nor names, are a good security for the continuance of party patriotism. The pigments of the human character, by which this last fact is exhibited, are so numerous, that the habit of overlooking them is like the simplicity of a child, unable to recognise his own image. Eyes, seeing power eternally corrupting men, and minds, acting upon a supposition that it does not, make up the foolish compound which has legislated for the world; and the world has been enslaved. The patriots Cæsar, Cromwell and Bonaparte, and the parties whig and tory, federal and republican, have acted and legislated alike, because men are influenced by power as all kinds of water are by rum. No name nor badge can enchant a man against a moral law impinging on his nature. If a partridge was called an ostrich, it would not save him from