Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/191

Rh government, inſtead of being braced and invigorated for greater exertions under their difficulties, would have been thrown back upon the bungling machinery of county committees for adminiſtration, till a convention could have been called, and its wheels again ſet into regular motion. What a cruel moment was this for creating ſuch an embarraſsment, for putting to the proof the attachment of our countrymen to republican government! Thoſe who meant well, of the advocates for this meaſure, (and moſt of them meant well, for I know them perſonally, had been their fellow-laborers in the common cauſe, and had often proved the purity of their principles, had been ſeduced in their judgment by the example of an ancient republic, whoſe conſtitution and circumſtances were fundamentally different. They had ſought this precedent in the hiſtory of Rome, where alone it was to be found, and where at length too it had proved fatal. They had taken it from a republic rent by the moſt bitter factions and tumults, where the government was of a heavy-handed unfeeling ariſtocracy, over a people ferocious, and rendered deſperate by poverty and wretchedneſs; tumults which could not be allayed under the moſt trying circumſtances, but by the omnipotent hand of a ſingle deſpot. Their conſtitution therefore allowed a temporary tyrant to be erected, under the name of a dictator; and that temporary tyrant after a few examples became perpetual.—They miſapplied this precedent to a people, mild in their diſpoſitions, patient under their trial, united for the public liberty, and affectionate to their leaders. But if from the conſtitution of the Roman government there reſulted to their ſenate a power of