Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/667

Rh They are universally disposed to persecute, plunder, oppress and kill, like all governments unsubjected to political law; and under the title of patriots, are, like fanaticks under the title of saints, ready to perpetrate any crimes to gratify their interest or prejudices. By melting down the fetters of moral and republican principles in party confidence, we abolish the only known remedy against the evil qualities of human nature, abandon our experiment of political law founded in these principles, and rest for security on ignorant mobs, guided by a few designing leaders, or on cunning combinations, guided by avarice and ambition. The Independents of England and the Jacobins of France, even abhorred the despotisms they introduced, but the results were unavoidable, as the natural effect of the unlimited confidence these parties acquired. This confidence produces an unlimited government, or one unrestricted by the ligatures of a moral analysis; and such a government is despotick. Under a despotism of any form, and in the form of a party of interest more than in any other, bodily safety, the safety of property, and the freedom of the mind, cease. Malice, envy and calumny instantly become the prime ministers of the furious and tottering tyrant. Knowing his doom from the fate of his predecessors, he hastens to glut his appetite for mischief before he dies. No numerical checks or balances can reach this dreadful party tyranny. It is even able to suspend or destroy those solemnly established by nations, and to make the people themselves the authors of their own ruin. A political analysis alone, composed of moral principles, can reach and tame a beast, from which men flee to monarchy, because it lays waste and devours their rights with a thousand hands and a thousand mouths. This can test party legislation and actions. But freed from the rigid control of good moral principles, the professions of parties are like the flattering sunshine of the morning, and their acts like an evening deluge. In legislation contrary to genuine republican principles, sustained by a dominant party zeal, lies, in my view, the greatest danger