Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/634

622 single cord of sympathy draws commiseration towards the unborn. Their money is spent without a possibility of the reimbursement, whatever it amounts to, drawn by cunning from the vices created by fraud and oppression. The parties of interest who receive the tax by anticipation, avoid the small check of contributing towards it. And the oppressor having enjoyed his spoil, has gotten out of reach, before the oppressed arquires a power of resistance.

The celebrated idea, "that the people are their own worst enemies," expressed by Ovid in his assumption of Romulus, and alluded to by Garth in his preface to a translation of the author, in the observation, that after a people are preserved from the enemy, the next care should be to preserve them from themselves," is adverse to the argument against a system of legislation in favour of parties of interest or aristocracy. Romulus himself was the author of the patrician party of interest at Rome, which murdered him, appropriated to themselves the publick wealth, oppressed the people, and drove them finally under the dominion of one tyrant, as a refuge from many. The Spartans never thought of these saviours against themselves. They were a democracy of masters over a democracy of slaves. These masters remained long free, because they trusted to themselves for safety. Nations who receive safety, receive at the same time a master, whether that safety is bestowed by law or by force. If by law, it must be the donation of some party of interest, and as it is of the essence of all such, to elevate without merit, and to enrich without industry, the genuine cements of honest society, and the motives inciting men to good and useful actions, must all be destroyed. By seeking for honour and wealth in title and law, men scatter curses. Left to feed their passions by the help of merit and industry, they scatter blessings.

Mercier, a French political writer, ascribes our constitutions to the wisdom of European philosophers, and foresees our ruin from mercantile guile. If the assertion is true, our gratitude for a policy, which that quarter of the