Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/66

60 and render it the most efficient form of government, for the purposes of conquest and foreign policy, that is known. Aristocracy has an absorbing quality, if such a term may be used, by which the active and daring of conquered territories, are induced to join the conquerors, in order to share in the advantages of the system. Thus we find that almost all the countries that have made extensive conquests over civilized people, and who have long retained them, have been aristocracies. We get examples of the facilities of aristocracies to extend their influence, as well as to retain it, in Rome, England, Venice, Florence and many other states.

An aristocracy is a combination of many powerful men, for the purpose of maintaining and advancing their own particular interests. It is consequently a concentration of all the most effective parts of a community for a given end; hence its energy, efficiency and success. Of all the forms of government, it is the one best adapted to support the system of metropolitan sway, since the most dangerous of the dependants can be bribed and neutralized, by admitting them to a participation of power. By this means it is rendered less offensive to human pride than the administration of one. The present relations between England and Ireland, are a striking instance of what is meant.

An aristocracy, unless unusually narrow, is peculiarly the government of the enterprising and the ambitious. High honors are attainable, and jealousy of rewards is confined to individuals, seldom effecting the state. The tendency of the system, therefore, is to render the aristocrats bold, independent and manly, and to cause them to be distinguished from the mass. In an age as advanced as ours, the leisure of the higher classes of an aristocracy, enable them to cultivate their minds and to improve their tastes. Hence