Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/653

Rh şion. Can a preference be given to a principle in any form, comprising the essence of political tyranny in every form?

The malignity of monarchy, aristocracy and hierarchy, rests in their disposition to bestow by law, benefits upon some, at the expense of others. It will be curious if the human intellect should be able to see this evil, however disguised by governments thus denominated, and also be blind to it undisguised, when practised by a republican government. When posterity shall compare Europe, plundered by the tricks of popery, with nations plundered without a juggle, its verdict as to the relative state of knowledge between the tenth and nineteenth centuries, may be antcipated. The more pilgrims, the more wealth for the priests of Loretto, and the less for the laity. The more paper stock, the more wealth for stockjobbers, and the less for those from whom it is drawn. Such will be the evidence upon which it must decide.

Docter Samuel Johnson, who was probably the best informed tory (if despotick principles are meant by that name) who ever lived, has been able to find but one argument in defence of converting civil government into a pecuniary machine; and those who mistake names for principles, or sacrifice principles to self interest, have availed themselves of it in a multitude of modes. Pecuniary extravagance is in his opinion no evil, but a good, as it produces a brisk circulation of money. A sophism which can only acquire credit by proving, that the situations of debtor and creditor, payer and receiver, and rich and poor, are equally desirable. Can the opinions of all mankind upon these contrasts be changed by an author, however famous, who has in a thousand other parts of his writings, discovered, that he himself concurred, unequivocally, with the universe. Nations deluded by it, when reduced to the state of the prodigal son, find prisons and poor houses, in lieu of a father's roof and a fatted kid. If the argument is false in respect to the party of interest exercising a government, it must be equally so, respecting every other party of interest. Kings. hierar-