Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/624

612 balanced, throw open all the avenues to power in favour of civil law, separate interests without check, and furnished with the artillery which has demolished even his best contrived balances. A pecuniary separate interest, unchecked by some coequal power to which its growth might be dangerous, constitutes the most oppressive conceivable species of government, because it collects private wealth for itself from the people by its own laws; and it will loudly deprecate conventions, because the abuse admits of no other remedy.

Such arguments as assail conventions, have been suggested by the same motives, against every moral improvement, to which the present age is indebted for all the happiness it enjoys, Christianity was dangerous in the opinion of pagan priests. Galileo's speculations were dangerous in the opinion of the Pope. Toleration is dangerous in the opinion of established churches; and conventions are dangerous in the opinion of every seperate interest. Yet Christianity prevailed; Galileo's principles triumphed; toleration exploded persecution; and conventions bestowed upon the United States the best practical government which has hitherto appeared.

All craftsmen, or parties of interest, exclaim that human nature is too imperfect to avail itself of the principles of political morality." Ought idolatry to have defeated christianity by the same argument; or are the principles of christianity less perfect than those of political morality? Or is human nature capable of being benefitted by good religious, but not by good political principles? Let prejudice, zeal and interest jointly answer these questions. There is no opinion more injurious to mankind, than " that virtuous nations only can maintain a free government." It enlists on the side of despotism all persons of a misanthropick turn of mind, by a computation of the human character, founded in a casual complexion, and liable to be false; and which would not justify the inference, if it was true. It enlists industrious men under the same banner, by terrifying them