V.14–24. Of Legislative and Executive Power (Chapters XIV–XXIV)

Definition.—Supposed evils of this form of government—ascendancy of the ignorant—of the crafty—inconstancy—rash confidence—groundless suspicion.—Merits and defects of democracy compared.—Its moral tendency.—Tendency of truth.—Representation.

Democracy is a system of government, according to which every member of society is considered as a man, and nothing more. So far as positive regulation is concerned, if indeed that can, with any propriety, be termed regulation, which is the mere recognition of the simplest of all moral principles, every man is regarded as equal. Talents and wealth, wherever they exist, will not fail to obtain a certain degree of influence, without requiring positive institution to second their operation.

But there are certain disadvantages that may seem the necessary result of democratical equality. In political society, it is reasonable to suppose, that the wise will be outnumbered by the unwise; and it will be inferred, “that the welfare of the whole, will therefore be at the mercy of ignorance and folly.” It is true that the ignorant, will generally be sufficiently willing to listen to the judicious, “but their very ignorance will incapacitate them from discerning the merit of their guides. The turbulent and crafty demagogue, will often possess greater advantages for inveigling their judgment, than the man who, with purer intentions, may possess a less brilliant talent. Add to this, that the demagogue has a never failing resource, in the ruling imperfection of human nature, that of preferring the specious present, to the substantial future. This is what is usually termed, playing upon the passions of mankind. Politics have hitherto presented an enigma, that all the wit of man has been insufficient to solve. Is it to be supposed, that the uninstructed multitude, should always be able to resist the artful sophistry, and captivating eloquence, that may be employed to perplex the subject with still further obscurity? Will it not often happen, that the schemes proposed by the ambitious disturber, will possess a meretricious attraction, which the severe and sober project of the discerning statesman shall be unable to compensate?”

“One of the most fruitful sources of human happiness, is to be found, in the steady and uniform operation of certain fixed principles. But it is the characteristic of a democracy, to be wavering and inconstant. The speculator only, who has deeply meditated his principles, is inflexible in his adherence to them. The mass of mankind, as they have never arranged their reflections into system, are at the mercy of every momentary impulse, and liable to change with every wind. But this inconstancy is directly the reverse of political justice.

“Nor is this all. Democracy is a monstrous and unwieldy vessel, launched upon the sea of human passions, without ballast. Liberty, in this unlimited form, is in danger to be lost, almost as soon as it is obtained. The ambitious man finds nothing, in this scheme of human affairs, to set bounds to his desires. He has only to dazzle and deceive the multitude, in order to rise to absolute power.

“A further ill consequence flows out of this circumstance. The multitude, conscious of their weakness in this respect, will, in proportion to their love of liberty and equality, be perpetually suspicious and uneasy. Has any man displayed uncommon virtues, or rendered eminent services to his country? He will presently be charged with secretly aiming at the tyranny. Various circumstances will come in aid of this accusation; the general love of novelty, envy of superior merit, and the incapacity of the multitude to understand the motives and character of those who excel them. Like the Athenian, they will be tired of hearing Aristides constantly called the Just. Thus will merit be too frequently the victim of ignorance and envy. Thus will all that is liberal and refined, whatever the human mind in its highest state of improvement is able to conceive, be often overpowered by the turbulence of unbridled passion, and the rude dictates of savage folly.”

If this picture must be inevitably realised wherever democratical principles are established, the state of human nature would be peculiarly unfortunate. No form of government can be devised which does not partake of monarchy, aristocracy or democracy. We have taken a copious survey of the two former, and it would seem impossible that greater or more inveterate mischiefs can be inflicted on mankind, than those which are inflicted by them. No portrait of injustice, degradation and vice can be exhibited, that can surpass the fair and inevitable inferences from the principle upon which they are built. If then democracy can, by any arguments, be brought down to a level with such monstrous institutions as these, in which there is neither integrity nor reason, our prospects of the future happiness of mankind, will indeed be deplorable.

But this is impossible. Supposing that we should even be obliged to take democracy with all the disadvantages that were ever annexed to it, and that no remedy could be discovered for any of its defects, it would still be preferable to the exclusive system of other forms. Let us take Athens, with all its turbulence and instability; with the popular and temperate usurpations of Pisistratus and Pericles; with its monstrous ostracism, by which, with undisguised injustice, they were accustomed periodically to banish some eminent citizen, without the imputation of a crime; with the imprisonment of Miltiades, the exile of Aristides, and the murder of Phocion:—with all these errors on its head, it is incontrovertible that Athens exhibited a more illustrious and enviable spectacle, than all the monarchies and aristocracies that ever existed. Who would reject their gallant love of virtue and independence, because it was accompanied with irregularities? Who would pass an unreserved condemnation upon their penetrating mind, their quick discernment, and their ardent feeling, because they were subject occasionally to be intemperate and impetuous? Shall we compare a people of such incredible achievements, such exquisite refinement, gay without insensibility, and splendid without intemperance, in the midst of whom grew up the greatest poets, the noblest artists, the most finished orators, and the most disinterested philosophers, the world ever saw shall we compare this chosen seat of patriotism, independence and generous virtue, with the torpid and selfish realms of monarchy and aristocracy? All is not happiness that looks tranquillity. Better were a portion of turbulence and fluctuation, than that unwholsome calm in which all the best faculties of the human mind are turned to putrescence and poison.

In the estimate that is usually made of democracy, one of the sources of our erroneous judgment, lies in our taking mankind such as monarchy and aristocracy have made them, and thence judging how fit they are to manage for themselves. Monarchy and aristocracy would be no evils, if their tendency were not to undermine the virtues and the understandings of their subjects. The thing most necessary, is to remove all those restraints which prevent the human mind from attaining its genuine strength. Implicit faith, blind submission to authority, timid fear, a distrust of our powers, an inattention to our own importance and the good purposes we are able to effect, these are the chief obstacles to human improvement. Democracy restores to man a consciousness of his value, teaches him, by the removal of authority and oppression, to listen only to the suggestions of reason, gives him confidence to treat all other men with frankness and simplicity, and induces him to regard them no longer, as enemies against whom to be upon his guard, but as brethren whom it becomes him to assist. The citizen of a democratical state, when he looks upon the oppression and injustice that prevail in the countries around him, cannot but entertain an inexpressible esteem for the advantages he enjoys, and the most unalterable determination to preserve them. The influence of democracy upon the sentiments of its members, is altogether of the negative sort, but its consequences are inestimable. Nothing can be more unreasonable, than to argue, from men as we now find them, to men as they may hereafter be made. Strict and accurate reasoning, instead of suffering us to be surprised that Athens did so much, would at first induce us to wonder that she retained so many imperfections.

The road to the improvement of mankind, is in the utmost degree simple, to speak and act the truth. If the Athenians had had more of this, it is impossible they should have been so flagrantly erroneous. To express ourselves to all men with honesty and unreserve, and to administer justice without partiality, are principles which, when once thoroughly adopted, are in the highest degree prolific. They enlighten the understanding, give decision to the judgment, and strip misrepresentation of its speciousness. In Athens, men suffered themselves to be dazzled by splendour and show. If the error in their constitution which led to this defect, can be discovered, if a form of political society can be devised, in which men shall be accustomed to judge simply and soberly, and be habitually exercised to the manliness of truth, democracy will, in that society, cease from the turbulence, instability, fickleness, and violence, that have too often characterised it. Nothing can be more worthy to be depended on, than the omnipotence of truth, or, in other words, than the connection between the judgment and the outward behaviour. The contest between truth and falshood is of itself too unequal, for the former to stand in need of support from any political ally. The more it is discovered, especially that part of it which relates to man in society, the more simple and self-evident will it appear; and it will be found impossible, any otherwise to account for its having been so long concealed, than from the pernicious influence of positive institution.

There is another obvious consideration that has frequently been alleged to account for the imperfection of ancient democracies, which is worthy of our attention, though it be not so important as the argument which has just been stated. The ancients were unaccustomed to the idea of deputed or representative assemblies; and it is reasonable to suppose, that affairs might often be transacted, with the utmost order, in such assemblies, which might be productive of much tumult and confusion, if submitted to the personal discussion of the citizens at large. By this happy expedient, we secure many of the pretended benefits of aristocracy, as well as the real benefits of democracy. The discussion of national affairs, is brought before persons of superior education and wisdom: we may conceive them, not only the appointed medium of the sentiments of their constituents, but authorised, upon certain occasions, to act on their part, in the same manner as an unlearned parent delegates his authority over his child to a preceptor of greater accomplishments than himself. This idea, within proper limits, might probably be entitled to approbation, provided the elector had the wisdom not to recede from the exercise of his own understanding in political concerns, exerted his censorial power over his representative, and were accustomed, if the representative were unable, after the fullest explanation, to bring him over to his opinion, to transfer his deputation to another.

The true value of the system of representation, seems to be as follows. Large promiscuous assemblies, such as the assemblies of the people in Athens and Rome, must perhaps always be somewhat tumultuous, and liable to many of the vices of democracy enumerated in the commencement of this chapter. A representative assembly, deputed on the part of the multitude, will escape many of their defects. But representative government is necessarily imperfect. It is, as was formerly observed, a point to be regretted, in the abstract notion of civil society, that a majority should overbear a minority, and that the minority, after having opposed and remonstrated, should be obliged practically to submit, to that which was the subject of their remonstrance. But this evil, inseparable from political government, is aggravated by representation, which removes the power of making regulations, one step further from the people whose lot it is to obey them. Representation therefore, though a remedy, or rather a palliative, for certain evils, is not a remedy so excellent or complete, as should authorise us to rest in it, as the highest improvement of which the social order is capable.

Such are the general features of democratical government: but this is a subject of too much importance to be dismissed, without the fullest examination of every thing that may enable us to decide upon its merits. We will proceed to consider the further objections that have been alleged against it

Importance of this topic.—Example in the doctrine of eternal punishment.—Its inutility argued—from history—from the nature of mind.—Second example: the religious sanction of a legislative system.—This idea is, 1. in strict construction impracticable—2. injurious.—Third example: principle of political order.—Vice has no essential advantage over virtue.—Motives of political imposture.—Effects that attend it.—Situation of the advocates of this system.—Absurdity of their reasonings.

All the arguments that have been employed to prove the insufficiency of democracy, grow out of this one root, the supposed necessity of deception and prejudice for restraining the turbulence of human passions. Without the assumption of this principle the argument could not be sustained for a moment. The direct and decisive answer would be, “Are kings and lords intrinsically wiser and better than their humbler neighbours? Can there be any solid ground of distinction, except what is founded in personal merit? Are not men, really and strictly considered, equal, except so far as what is personal and inalienable, establishes a difference?” To these questions there can be but one reply, “Such is the order of reason and absolute truth, but artificial distinctions are necessary for the happiness of mankind. Without deception and prejudice the turbulence of human passions cannot be restrained.” Let us then examine the merits of this theory; and these will be best illustrated by an instance.

It has been held, by some divines and some politicians, “that the doctrine, which teaches that men will be eternally tormented in another world, for their errors and misconduct in this, is in its own nature unreasonable and absurd, but that it is necessary, to keep mankind in awe. Do we not see,” say they, “that, notwithstanding this terrible denunciation, the world is overrun with vice? What then would be the case, if the irregular passions of mankind were set free from their present restraint, and they had not the fear of this retribution before their eyes?”

This argument seems to be founded in a singular inattention to the dictates of history and experience, as well as to those of reason. The ancient Greeks and Romans had nothing of this dreadful apparatus of fire and brimstone, and a torment “the smoke of which ascends for ever and ever.” Their religion was less personal, than political. They confided in the Gods as protectors of the state, and this inspired them with invincible courage. In periods of public calamity, they found a ready consolation, in expiatory sacrifices to appease the anger of the Gods. The attention of these beings was conceived to be principally directed to the ceremonial of religion, and very little to the moral excellencies and defects of their votaries, which were supposed to be sufficiently provided for, by the inevitable tendency of moral excellence or defect to increase or diminish individual happiness. If their systems included the doctrine of a future existence, little attention was paid by them, to the connecting the moral deserts of individuals in this life, with their comparative situation in another. In Homer, the Elysian fields are a seat of perpetual weariness and languor: Elysium and Tartarus are inclosed in the same circuit; and the difference between them, at most, amounts to no more, than the difference between sadness and misery. The same omission, of future retribution as the basis of moral obligation, runs through the systems of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Celts, the Phenicians, the Jews, and indeed every system which has not been, in some manner or other, the offspring of the Christian. If we were to form our judgment of these nations by the above argument, we should expect to find every individual among them, cutting his neighbour’s throat, and inured to the commission of every enormity. But they were, in reality, as susceptible of the regulations of government, and the order of society, as those, whose imaginations have been most artfully terrified by the threats of future retribution; and some of them were much more generous, determined and attached to the public weal.

Nothing can be more contrary to a just observation of the nature of the human mind, than to suppose that these speculative tenets, have much influence in making mankind more virtuous, than they would otherwise be found. Human beings are placed in the midst of a system of things, all the parts of which are strictly connected with each other, and exhibit a sympathy and unison, by means of which the whole is rendered familiar, and, as it were, inmate to the mind. The respect I shall obtain, and the happiness I shall enjoy, for the remainder of my life, are topics of which I feel the entire comprehension. I understand the value of ease, liberty and knowledge, to myself, and my fellow men. I perceive that these things, and a certain conduct intending them, are connected, in the visible system of the world, and not by any supernatural and unusual interposition. But all that can be told me of a future world, a world of spirits, or of glorified bodies, where the employments are spiritual, and the first cause is to be rendered a subject of immediate perception, or of a scene of retribution, where the mind, doomed to everlasting inactivity, shall be wholly a prey to the upbraidings of remorse, and the sarcasms of devils, is so foreign to every thing with which I am acquainted, that my mind in vain endeavours to believe, or to understand it. If doctrines like these occupy the habitual reflections of any, it is not of the lawless, the violent and ungovernable, but of the sober and conscientious, overwhelming them with gratuitous anxiety, or persuading them passively to submit to despotism and injustice, that they may receive the recompense of their patience hereafter. This objection is equally applicable to every species of deception. Fables may amuse the imagination; but can never stand in the place of reason and judgment as the principles of human conduct. -Let us proceed to a second instance.

It is affirmed by Rousseau, in his treatise of the Social Contract, “that no legislator could ever establish a grand political system, without having recourse to religious imposture. To render a people, who are yet to receive the impressions of political wisdom, susceptible of the evidence of that wisdom, would be to convert the effect of civilisation into the cause. The legislator being deprived of assistance from the two grand operative causes among men, reasoning and force, is obliged to have recourse to an authority of a different sort, which may draw without compulsion, and persuade without elucidation.”

These are the dreams of a fertile conception, busy in the erection of imaginary systems. To a wary and sceptical mind, that project would seem to promise little substantial benefit, which set out from so erroneous a principle. To terrify or seduce men into the reception of a system, the reasonableness of which they were unable to perceive, is surely a very questionable method for rendering them sober, judicious, reasonable and happy.

In reality, no grand political system ever was introduced in the manner Rousseau describes. Lycurgus, as he observes, obtained the sanction of the oracle at Delphi to the constitution he had established. But was it by an appeal to Apollo, that he persuaded the Spartans, to renounce the use of money, to consent to an equal division of land, and to adopt various other regulations, the most contrary to their preconceived habits and ideas? No: it was, by an appeal to their understandings, in the midst of long debate and perpetual counteraction, and through the inflexibility of his courage and resolution, that he at last attained his purpose. Lycurgus thought proper, after the whole was concluded, to obtain the sanction of the oracle, conceiving that it became him to neglect no method of substantiating the benefit he had conferred on his countrymen. It is indeed scarcely possible to persuade a society of men to adopt any system, without convincing them that it is their wisdom to adopt it. It is difficult to conceive a company of such miserable dupes, as to receive a code, without any imagination that it is salutary or wise or just, but upon this single recommendation that it is delivered to them from the Gods. The only reasonable, and infinitely the most efficacious method of changing the established customs of any people, is by creating in them a general opinion of their erroneousness and insufficiency.

But, if it be indeed impracticable to persuade men into the adoption of any system, without employing as our principal argument, the intrinsic rectitude of that system, what is the argument which he would desire to use, who had most at heart the welfare and improvement of the persons concerned? Would he begin by teaching them to reason well, or to reason ill? by unnerving their mind with prejudice, or new stringing it with truth?

How many arts, and how noxious to those towards whom we employ them, are necessary, if we would successfully deceive? We must not only leave their reason in indolence at first, but endeavour to supersede its exertion in any future instance. If men be, for the present, kept right by prejudice, what will become of them hereafter, if, by any future penetration, or any accidental discovery, this prejudice shall be annihilated? Detection is not always the fruit of systematical improvement, but may be effected by some solitary exertion of the faculty, or some luminous and irresistible argument, while every thing else remains as it was. If we would first deceive, and then maintain our deception unimpaired, we shall need penal statutes, and licensers of the press, and hired ministers of falshood and imposture. Admirable modes these for the propagation of wisdom and virtue!

There is another case, similar to that stated by Rousseau, upon which much stress has been laid by political writers. “Obedience,” say they, “must either be courted or compelled. We must either make a judicious use of the prejudices and the ignorance of mankind, or be contented to have no hold upon them but their fears, and to maintain social order entirely by the severity of punishment. To dispense us from this painful necessity, authority ought carefully to be invested with a sort of magic persuasion. Citizens should serve their country, not with a frigid submission that scrupulously weighs its duties, but with an enthusiasm” that places its honour in its loyalty. For this reason, our governors and superiors must not be spoken of with levity. They must be considered, independently of their individual character, as deriving a sacredness from their office. They must be accompanied with splendour and veneration. Advantage must be taken of the imperfection of mankind. We ought to gain over their judgments through the medium of their senses, and not leave the conclusions to be drawn, to the uncertain process of immature reason.

This is still the same argument under another form. It takes for granted, that a true observation of things, is inadequate to teach us our duty; and, of consequence, recommends an equivocal engine, which may, with equal ease, be employed in the service of justice and injustice, but would surely appear somewhat more in its place in the service of the latter. It is injustice that stands most in need of superstition and mystery, and will most frequently be a gainer by the imposition. This hypothesis proceeds upon an assumption, which young men sometimes impute to their parents and preceptors. It says, “Mankind must be kept in ignorance: if they know vice, they will love it too well; if they perceive the charms of error, they will never return to the simplicity of truth.” And, strange as it may appear, this bare-faced and unplausible argument, has been the foundation of a very popular and generally received hypothesis. It has taught politicians to believe, that a people, once sunk into decrepitude, as it has been termed, could never afterwards be endued with purity and vigour.

There are two modes, according to which the minds of human beings may be influenced, by him who is desirous to conduct them. The first of these, is a strong and commanding picture, taking hold of the imagination, and surprising the judgment; the second, a distinct and unanswerable statement of reasons, which, the oftener they are reflected upon, and the more they are sifted, will be found by so much the more cogent.

One of the tritest and most general, as well as most selfevident, maxims in the science of the human mind, is, that the former of these is only adapted to a temporary purpose, while the latter alone is adequate to a purpose that is durable. How comes it then that, in the business of politics and government, the purposes of which are evidently not temporary, the fallacious mode of proceeding should have been so generally and so eagerly resorted to?

This may be accounted for from two considerations: first the diffidence, and secondly, the vanity and self-applause, of legislators and statesmen. It is an arduous task, always to assign reasons to those, whose conduct we would direct; it is by no means easy, to answer objections and remove difficulties. It requires patience; it demands profound science and severe meditation. This is the reason why, in the instance already alluded to, parents and preceptors find a refuge for their indolence, while by false pretences they cheat the young into compliance, in preference to showing them, as far as they may be capable of understanding it, the true face of things.

Statesmen secretly distrust their own powers, and therefore substitute quackery in the room of principle.

But, beside the recommendations that quackery derives from indolence and ignorance, it is also calculated to gratify the vanity of him that employs it. He that would reason with another, and honestly explain to him the motives of the action he recommends, descends to a footing of equality. But he who undertakes to delude us, and fashion us to his purpose by a specious appearance, has a feeling that he is our master. Though his task is neither so difficult nor so honourable as that of the ingenuous dealer, he regards it as more flattering. At every turn he admires his own dexterity; he triumphs in the success of his artifices, and delights to remark how completely mankind are his dupes.

There are disadvantages of no ordinary magnitude that attend upon the practice of political imposture.

It is utterly incompatible with the wholsome tone of the human understanding. Man, we have seen some reason to believe, is a being of progressive nature, and capable of unlimited improvement. But his progress must be upon the plain line of reason and truth. As long as he keeps the open road, his journey is prosperous and promising; but, if he turn aside into by-paths, he will soon come to a point, where there is no longer either avenue or track. He that is accustomed to a deceitful medium, will be ignorant of the true colours of things. He that is often imposed on, will be no judge of the fair and the genuine. Human understanding cannot be tampered with, with impunity; if we admit prejudice, deception and implicit faith in one subject, the inquisitive energies of the mind will be more or less weakened in all. This is a fact so well known, that the persons who recommend the governing mankind by deception, are, to a man, advocates of the opinion, that the human species is essentially stationary.

A further disadvantage of political imposture, is, that the bubble is hourly in danger of bursting, and the delusion of coming to an end. The playing upon our passions and our imagination, as we have already said, can never fully answer any but a temporary purpose. In delusion there is always inconsistency. It will look plausibly, when placed in a certain light; but it will not bear handling, and examining on all sides. It suits us in a certain animated tone of mind; but, in a calm and tranquil season, it is destitute of power. Politics and government are affairs of a durable concern; they should therefore rest upon a basis that will abide the test.

The system of political imposture divides men into two classes, one of which is to think and reason for the whole, and the other to take the conclusions of their superiors on trust. This distinction is not founded in the nature of things; there is no such inherent difference between man and man, as it thinks proper to suppose. Nor is it less injurious, than it is unfounded. The two classes which it creates, must be more and less than man. It is too much to expect of the former, while we consign to them an unnatural monopoly, that they should rigidly consult for the good of the whole. It is an iniquitous requisition upon the latter, that they should never employ their understandings, or penetrate into the essences of things, but always rest in a deceitful appearance. It is iniquitous, to deprive them of that chance for additional wisdom, which would result, from a greater number of minds being employed in the enquiry, and from the disinterested and impartial spirit that might be expected to accompany it.

How strangely incongruous is that state of mind, which the system we are here examining, is adapted to recommend. Shall those persons who govern the springs, and carry on the deception, be themselves in the secret of the imposition or not? This is a fundamental question. It has often been started, in relation to the authors or abettors of a new fabric of superstition. On the one hand, we should be apt to imagine, that, for a machine to be guided well, it is desirable that those who guide it, should be acquainted with its principle. We should suppose that, otherwise, the governors we speak of, would not always know the extent and the particulars as to which the deception was salutary; and that, where “the blind led the blind,” the public welfare would not be in a much better condition, than the greatest advocates of imposture could suppose it to be under the auspices of truth. But then again, on the other hand, no man can be powerful in persuasion, in a point where he has not first persuaded himself. Beside that the secret must, first or last, be confided to so many hands, that it will be continually in danger of being discovered by the public at large. So that for these reasons it would seem best, that he, who first invented the art of leading mankind at pleasure, and set the wheels of political craft in motion, should suffer his secret to die with him.

And what sort of character must exist in a state thus modified? Those at the head of affairs, if they be acquainted with the principle of the political machine, must be perpetually anxious, lest mankind should unexpectedly recover the use of their faculties. Falshood must be their discipline and incessant study. We will suppose, that they adopt this system of imposture, in the first instance, from the most benevolent motives. But will the continual practice of concealment, hypocrisy and artifice, make no breaches in their character? Will they, in despite of habit, retain all that ingenuousness of heart which is the first principle of virtue?

With respect to the multitude, in this system, they are placed in the middle between two fearful calamities, suspicion on one side, and infatuation on the other. Even children, when their parents explain to them, that there is one system of morality for youth, and another for mature age, and endeavour to cheat them into submission, are generally found to suspect the trick. It cannot reasonably be thought, that the mass of the governed in any country, should be less clear-sighted than children. Thus they are kept in perpetual vibration, between rebellious discontent, and infatuated credulity. Sometimes they suppose their governors to be the messengers and favourites of heaven, a supernatural order of beings; and sometimes they suspect them to be a combination of usurpers to rob and oppress them. For they dare not indulge themselves in solving the dilemma, because they are held in awe by oppression and the gallows.

Is this the genuine state of man? Is this a condition so desirable, that we should be anxious to entail it upon posterity for ever? Is it high treason to enquire whether it may be meliorated? Are we sure, that every change from such a situation of things, is severely to be deprecated? Is it not worth while, to suffer that experiment, which shall consist in a gradual, and almost insensible, abolition of such mischievous institutions?

It may not be uninstructive to consider what sort of discourse must be held, or book written, by him who should make himself the champion of political imposture. He cannot avoid secretly wishing that the occasion had never existed. What he undertakes is to lengthen the reign of “salutary prejudices.” For this end, he must propose to himself the two opposite purposes, of prolonging the deception, and proving that it is necessary to deceive. By whom is it that he intends his book should be read? Chiefly by the governed; the governors need little inducement to continue the system. But, at the same time that he tells us, we should cherish the mistake as mistake, and the prejudice as prejudice, he is himself lifting the veil, and destroying his own system. While the affair of our superiors and the enlightened, is simply, to impose upon us, the task is plain and intelligible. But, the moment they begin to write books, to persuade us that we ought to be willing to be deceived, it may well be suspected that their system is upon the decline. It is not to be wondered at, if the greatest genius, and the sincerest and most benevolent champion, should fail in producing a perspicuous or very persuasive treatise, when he undertakes so hopeless a task.

The argument of such a system must, when attentively examined, be the most untenable that can be imagined. It undertakes to prove that we must not be governed by reason. To prove! How prove? Necessarily, from the resources of reason. What can be more contradictory? If I must not trust the conclusions of reason relative to the intrinsic value of things, why trust to your reasons in favour of the benefit of being deceived? You cut up your own argument by the roots. If I must reject the dictates of reason in one point, there can be no possible cause why I should adopt them in another. Moral reasons and inducements, as we have repeatedly shown, consist singly in this, an estimate of consequences. What can supersede this estimate? Not an opposite estimate; for, by the nature of morality, the purpose, in the first instance, is, to take into account all the consequences. Not something else, for a consideration of consequences is the only thing, with which morality and practical wisdom are directly concerned. The moment I dismiss the information of my own eyes and my own understanding, there is, in all justice, an end to persuasion, expostulation or conviction. There is no pretence, by which I can disallow the authority of inference and deduction in one instance, that will not justify a similar proceeding in every other. He that, in any case, designedly surrenders the use of his own understanding, is condemned to remain for ever at the beck of contingence and caprice, and is even bound in consistency, no more to frame his course by the results of demonstration, than by the wildest dreams of delirium and insanity.

Offensive war contrary to the nature of democracy.—Defensive war exceedingly rare.—Erroneousness of the ideas usually annexed to the phrase, our country.—Nature of war delineated.—Insufficient causes of war—the acquiring a healthful and vigorous tone to the public mind—the putting a termination upon private insults—the menaces or preparations of our neighbours—the dangerous consequences of concession—the vindication of national honour.—Two legitimate causes of war.

Exclusively of those objections which have been urged against the democratical system, as it relates to the internal management of affairs, there are others, upon which considerable stress has been laid, in relation to the transactions of a state with foreign powers, to war and peace, and to treaties of alliance and commerce.

There is indeed an eminent difference, with respect to these, between the democratical system and all others. It is perhaps impossible to show, that a single war ever did, or could have taken place, in the history of mankind, that did not in some way originate with those two great political monopolies, monarchy and aristocracy. This might have formed an additional article, in the catalogue of the evils to which they have given birth, little inferior to any of those we have enumerated. But nothing could be more idle, than to overcharge a subject, the evidence of which is irresistible.

What could be the source of misunderstanding between states, where no man, or body of men, found encouragement to the accumulation of privileges to himself, at the expence of the rest? Why should they pursue additional wealth or territory? These would lose their value, the moment they became the property of all. No man can cultivate more than a certain portion of land. Money is representative, and not real wealth. If every man in the society possessed a double portion of money, bread, and every other commodity, would sell at double their present price, and the relative situation of each individual, would be just what it had been before. War and conquest cannot be beneficial to the community. Their tendency is to elevate a few at the expence of the rest; and consequently they will never be undertaken, but where the many are the instruments of the few. But this cannot happen in a democracy, till the democracy shall become such only in name. If expedients can be devised for maintaining this species of government in its purity, or if there be any thing, in the nature of wisdom and intellectual improvement, which has a tendency daily to make truth more prevalent over falshood, the principle of offensive war will be extirpated. But this principle enters into the very essence of monarchy and aristocracy.

It is not meant here to be insinuated, that democracy has not repeatedly been a source of war. It was eminently so among the ancient Romans; the aristocracy found in it an obvious expedient for diverting the attention and incroachments of the people. It may be expected to be so, wherever the form of government is complicated, and the nation at large is enabled to become formidable to a band of usurpers. But war will be foreign to the character of any people, in proportion as their democracy becomes simple and unalloyed.

Meanwhile, though the principle of offensive war be incompatible with the genius of democracy, a democratical state may be placed in the neighbourhood of states whose government is less equal, and therefore it will be proper to enquire into the supposed disadvantages which the democratical state may sustain in the contest. The only species of war in which it can consistently be engaged, will be that the object of which is to repel wanton invasion. Such invasions will be little likely frequently to occur. For what purpose should a corrupt state attack a country, that has no feature in common with itself upon which to build a misunderstanding, and that presents, in the very nature of its government, a pledge of its inoffensiveness and neutrality? Add to which, it will presently appear, that this state, which yields the fewest incitements to provoke an attack, will prove a very undesirable adversary to those by whom an attack shall be commenced.

One of the most essential principles of political justice, is diametrically the reverse of that, which impostors, as well as patriots, have too frequently agreed to recommend. Their perpetual exhortation has been, “Love your country. Sink the personal existence of individuals in the existence of the community. Make little account of the particular men of whom the society consists, but aim at the general wealth, prosperity and glory. Purify your mind from the gross ideas of sense, and elevate it to the single contemplation of that abstract individual, of which particular men are so many detached members, valuable only for the place they fill.”

The lessons of reason on this head are different from these. “Society is an ideal existence, and not, on its own account, entitled to the smallest regard. The wealth, prosperity and glory of the whole are unintelligible chimeras. Set no value on any thing, but in proportion as you are convinced of its tendency to make individual men happy and virtuous. Benefit, by every practicable mode, man wherever he exists; but be not deceived by the specious idea of affording services to a body of men, for which no individual man is the better. Society was instituted, not for the sake of glory, not to furnish splendid materials for the page of history, but for the benefit of its members. The love of our country, as the term has usually been understood, has too often been found to be one of those specious illusions, which are employed by impostors, for the purpose of rendering the multitude the blind instruments of their crooked designs.”

In the mean time, the maxims which are here controverted, have had by so much the more success in the world, as they bear some resemblance to the purest sentiments of virtue. Virtue is nothing else but kind and sympathetic feelings reduced into principle. Undisciplined feeling would induce me, now to interest myself exclusively for one man, and now for another, to be eagerly solicitous for those who are present to me, and to forget the absent. Feeling ripened into virtue, embraces the interests of the whole human race, and constantly proposes to itself the production of the greatest quantity of happiness. But, while it anxiously adjusts the balance of interests, and yields to no case, however urgent, to the prejudice of the whole, it keeps aloof from the unmeaning rant of romance, and uniformly recollects that happiness, in order to be real, must necessarily be individual.

The love of our country, has often been found to be a deceitful principle, as its direct tendency, is to set the interests of one division of mankind in opposition to another, and to establish a preference, built upon accidental relations, and not upon reason. Much of what has been understood by the appellation, is excellent, but perhaps nothing that can be brought within the strict interpretation of the phrase. A wise and well informed man will not fail to be the votary of liberty and justice. He will be ready to exert himself in their defence, wherever they exist. It cannot be a matter of indifference to him, when his own liberty and that of other men with whose merits and capacities he has the best opportunity of being acquainted, are involved in the event of the struggle to be made. But his attachment will be to the cause, as the cause of man, and not to the country. Wherever there are individuals, who understand the value of political justice, and are prepared to assert it, that is his country. Wherever he can most contribute to the diffusion of these principles and the real happiness of mankind, that is his country. Nor does he desire, for any country, any other benefit than justice.

To apply these principles to the subject of war.—And, before that application can be adequately made, it is necessary to recollect, for a moment, the force of the term.

Because individuals were liable to error, and suffered their apprehensions of justice to be perverted by a bias in favour of themselves, government was instituted. Because nations were susceptible of a similar weakness, and could find no sufficient umpire to whom to appeal, war was introduced. Men were induced deliberately to seek each other’s lives, and to adjudge the controversies between them, not according to the dictates of reason and justice, but as either should prove most successful in devastation and murder. This was no doubt in the first instance the extremity of exasperation and rage. But it has since been converted into a trade. One part of the nation pays another part, to murder and be murdered in their stead; and the most trivial causes, a supposed insult, or a sally of youthful ambition, have sufficed to deluge provinces with blood.

We can have no adequate idea of this evil, unless we visit, at least in imagination, a field of battle. Here men deliberately destroy each other by thousands, without resentment against, or even knowledge of, each other. The plain is strewed with death in all its forms. Anguish and wounds display the diversified modes in which they can torment the human frame. Towns are burned; ships are blown up in the air, while the mangled limbs descend on every side; the fields are laid desolate; the wives of the inhabitants exposed to brutal insult; and their children driven forth to hunger and nakedness. It is an inferior circumstance, though by no means unattended with the widest and most deplorable effects, when we add, to these scenes of horror, and the subversion of all ideas of moral justice they must occasion in the auditors and spectators, the immense treasures which are wrung, in the form of taxes, from those inhabitants whose residence is removed from the seat of war.

After this enumeration, we may venture to enquire what are the justifiable causes and rules of war.

It is not a justifiable reason, “that we imagine our own people would be rendered more cordial and orderly, if we could find a neighbour with whom to quarrel, and who might serve as a touchstone to try the characters and dispositions of individuals among ourselves.” We are not at liberty to have recourse to the most complicated and atrocious of all mischiefs, in the way of an experiment.

It is not a justifiable reason, “that we have been exposed to certain insults, and that tyrants, perhaps, have delighted in treating with contempt, the citizens of our happy state who have visited their dominions.” Government ought to protect the tranquillity of those who reside within the sphere of its functions; but, if individuals think proper to visit other countries, they must be delivered over to the protection of general reason. Some proportion must be observed, between the evil of which we complain, and the evil which the nature of the proposed remedy inevitably includes.

It is not a justifiable reason, “that our neighbour is preparing, or menacing, hostilities.” If we be obliged to prepare in our turn, the inconvenience is only equal; and it is not to be believed, that a despotic country is capable of more exertion than a free one, when the task incumbent on the latter is indispensible precaution.

It has sometimes been held to be sound reasoning upon this subject, “that we ought not to yield little things, which may not, in themselves, be sufficiently valuable to authorise this tremendous appeal, because a disposition to yield, only invites further experiments.” Much otherwise; at least when the character of such a nation is sufficiently understood. A people that will not contend for nominal and trivial objects, that adheres to the precise line of unalterable justice, and that does not fail to be moved at the moment that it ought to be moved, is not the people that its neighbours will delight to urge to extremities.

“The vindication of national honour” is a very insufficient reason for hostilities. True honour is to be found only in integrity and justice. It has been doubted, how far a view to reputation, ought, in matters of inferior moment, to be permitted to influence the conduct of individuals; but, let the case of individuals be decided as it may, reputation, considered as a separate motive in the instance of nations, can perhaps never be justifiable. In individuals, it seems as if I might, consistently with the utmost real integrity, be so misconstrued and misrepresented by others, as to render my efforts at usefulness almost necessarily abortive. But this reason does not apply to the case of nations. Their real story cannot easily be suppressed. Usefulness and public spirit, in relation to them, chiefly belong to the transactions of their members among themselves; and their influence in the transactions of neighbouring nations, is a consideration evidently subordinate—The question which respects the justifiable causes of war, would be liable to few difficulties, if we were accustomed, along with the word, strongly to call up to our minds the thing which that word is intended to represent.

Accurately considered, there can probably be but two causes of war that can maintain any plausible claim to justice; and one of them, is among those which the logic of sovereigns, and the law of nations, as it has been termed, have been thought to proscribe: these are the defence of our own liberty, and of the liberty of others. The well known objection to the latter of these cases, is, “that one nation ought not to interfere in the internal transactions of another.” But certainly every people is fit for the possession of any immunity, as soon as they understand the nature of that immunity, and desire to possess it; and it is probable that this condition may be sufficiently realised, in cases, where, from the subtlety of intrigue, and the tyrannical jealousy of neighbouring kingdoms, they may be rendered incapable of effectually asserting their rights. This principle is capable of being abused by men of ambition and intrigue; but, accurately considered, the very same argument that should induce me to exert myself for the liberties of my own country, is equally cogent, so far as my opportunities and ability extend, with respect to the liberties of any other country. But what is my duty in this case, is the duty of all; and the exertion must be collective, where collective exertion only can be effectual.

The repelling an invader.—Not reformation—not restraint—not indemnification.—Nothing can be a sufficient object of war, that is not a sufficient cause for beginning it.—Reflections on the balance of power.

Let us pass, from the causes to the objects of war. As defence is the only legitimate cause, the object pursued, reasoning from this principle, will be circumscribed within very narrow limits. It can extend no further, than the repelling the enemy from our borders. It is perhaps desirable that, in addition to this, he should afford some proof that he does not propose immediately to renew his invasion; but this, though desirable, affords no sufficient apology for the continuance of hostilities. Declarations of war, and treaties of peace, were the inventions of a barbarous age, and would probably never have grown into established usages, if war had customarily gone no further than to the limits of defence.

The criminal justice, as it has been termed, of nations within themselves, has only three objects that it can be imagined to have in view, the reformation of the criminal, the restraining him from future excesses, and example. But none of these objects, whatever may be thought of them while confined to their original province, can sufficiently apply to the case of war between independent states. War, as we have already seen, perhaps never originates, on the offending side, in the sentiments of a nation, but of a comparatively small number of individuals: and, were it otherwise, there is something so monstrous, in the idea of changing the principles of a whole country by the mode of military execution, that every man not lost to sobriety and common sense, may be expected to shrink from it with horror.

Restraint appears to be sometimes necessary, with respect to the offenders that exist in the midst of a community, because it is customary for such offenders to assail us with unexpected violence; but nations cannot move with such secrecy, as to make an unforeseen attack an object of considerable apprehension. The only effectual means of restraint, in this case, is by disabling, impoverishing and depopulating the country of our adversaries; and, if we recollected that they are men as well as ourselves, and the great mass of them innocent of the quarrel against us, we should be little likely to consider these expedients with complacency.—The idea of making an example of an offending nation, is reserved for that God, whom the church, as by law established, instructs us to adore.

Indemnification is another object of war, which the same mode of reasoning will not fail to condemn. The true culprits can never be discovered, and the attempt would only serve to confound the innocent and the guilty: not to mention, that nations having no common umpire, the reverting, in the conclusion of every war, to the justice of the original quarrel, and the indemnification to which the parties were entitled, would be a means of rendering the controversy endless. The question respecting the justifiable objects of war would be liable to few difficulties, if we laid it down as a maxim, that, as often as the principle or object of a war already in existence was changed, it was to be considered as equivalent to the commencement of a new war. This maxim, impartially applied, would not fail to condemn objects of prevention, indemnification and restraint.

The celebrated topic of the balance of power is a mixed consideration, having sometimes been proposed as the cause for beginning a war, and sometimes as an object to be pursued in a war already begun. A war, undertaken to maintain the balance of power, may be either of defence, as to protect a people who are oppressed, or of prevention, to counteract new acquisitions, or to reduce the magnitude of old possessions. We shall be in little danger of error however, if we pronounce wars undertaken to maintain the balance of power to be universally unjust. If any people be oppressed, it is our duty, as has been already said, as far as a favourable opportunity may invite us, to fly to their succour. But it would be well, if, in such cases, we called our interference by the name which justice prescribes, and fought against the oppression, and not the power. All hostilities against a neighbouring people, because they are powerful, or because we impute to them evil designs which they have not begun to carry in execution, are incompatible with every principle of morality. If one nation chuse to be governed by the monarch, or an individual allied to the monarch, of another, as seems to have been the case in Spain, upon the extinction of the elder branch of the house of Austria, we may endeavour, as individuals, to enlighten them on the subject of government, and imbue them with principles of liberty; but it is an execrable piece of tyranny, to tell them, “You shall exchange the despot you love, for the despot you hate, on account of certain remote consequences we apprehend from the accession of the former.” The pretence of the balance of power, has, in a multitude of instances, served as a veil to the intrigue of courts; but it would be easy to show, that the present independence of the different states of Europe, has, in no instance, been materially assisted, by the wars undertaken for that purpose. The fascination of a people desiring to become the appendage of a splendid despotism, will rarely occur; and, when it does, can justly be counteracted only by peaceable means. The succouring a people in their struggle against oppression must always be just, with this limitation, that to attempt it without an urgent need on their part, may uselessly extend the calamities of war, and has a tendency to diminish those energies among themselves, the exertion of which might contribute to their virtue and happiness. Add to this, that the object itself, the independence of the different states of Europe, is of an equivocal nature. The despotism, which at present prevails in the majority of them, is certainly not so excellent, as to make us very anxious for its preservation. The press is an engine of so admirable a nature for the destruction of despotism, as to elude the sagacity perhaps of the most vigilant police; and the internal checks upon freedom in a mighty empire and distant provinces, can scarcely be expected to be equally active with those of a petty tyrant. The reasoning will surely be good with respect to war, which has already been employed upon the subject of government, that an instrument, evil in its own nature, ought never to be selected as the means of promoting our purpose, in any case in which selection can be practised.

Offensive operations.—Fortifications.—General action.—Stratagem.—Military contributions.—Capture of mercantile vessels.—Naval war.—Humanity.—Military obedience.—Foreign possessions.

Another topic respecting war, which it is of importance to consider in this place, relates to the mode of conducting it. Upon this article, our judgment will be greatly facilitated, by a recollection of the principles already established, first, that no war is justifiable but a war purely defensive; and secondly, that a war already begun, is liable to change its character in this respect, the moment the object pursued in it becomes in any degree varied. From these principles it follows as a direct corollary, that it is never allowable to make an expedition into the provinces of the enemy, unless for the purpose of assisting its oppressed inhabitants. It is scarcely necessary to add that all false casuistry respecting the application of this exception, would be particularly odious; and that it is better undisguisedly to avow the corrupt principles of policy by which we conduct ourselves, than hypocritically to claim the praise of better principles, which we fail not to wrest to the justification of whatever we desire. The case of relieving the inhabitants of our enemy’s territory, and their desire of obtaining relief, ought to be unequivocal; we shall be in great danger of misapprehension on the subject, when the question comes under the form of immediate benefit to ourselves; and, above all, we must recollect that human blood is not to be shed upon a precarious experiment.

The occasional advantages of war, that might be gained by offensive operations, might be abundantly compensated, by the character of magnanimous forbearance that a rigid adherence to defence would exhibit, and the effects that character would produce, both upon foreign nations, and upon our own people. Great unanimity at home, can scarcely fail to be the effect of a direct and clear conformity to political justice. The enemy who penetrates into our country, wherever he meets a man, will meet a foe. Every obstacle will oppose itself to his progress, while every thing will be friendly and assisting to our own forces. He will scarcely be able to procure the slightest intelligence, or understand in any case his relative situation. The principles of defensive war are so simple, as to procure an almost infallible success. Fortifications are a very equivocal species of protection, and will perhaps oftener be of advantage to the enemy, by being first taken, and then converted into magazines for his armies. A moving force on the contrary, if it only hovered about his march, and avoided general action, would always preserve the real superiority. The great engine of military success or miscarriage, is the article of provisions; and the further the enemy advanced into our country, the more easy would it be to cut off his supply; at the same time that, so long as we avoided general action, any decisive success on his part would be impossible. These principles, if rigidly practised, would soon be so well understood, that the entering in a hostile manner the country of a neighbouring nation, would come to be regarded as the infallible destruction of the invading army. Perhaps no people were ever conquered at their own doors, unless they were first betrayed, either by divisions among themselves, or by the abject degeneracy of their character. The more we come to understand of the nature of justice, the more it will show itself to be stronger than a host of foes. Men, whose bosoms are truly pervaded with this principle, cannot perhaps be other than invincible. Among the various examples of excellence, in almost every department, that ancient Greece has bequeathed us, the most conspicuous, is her resistance with a handful of men against three millions of invaders.

One branch of the art of war, as well as of every other human art, has hitherto consisted in deceit. If the principles of this work be built upon a sufficiently solid basis, the practice of deceit ought, in almost all instances, to be condemned, whether it proceed from false tenderness to our friends, or from a desire to hasten the downfal of injustice. Vice is neither the most allowable nor effectual weapon, with which to contend against vice. Deceit is certainly not less deceit, whether the falshood be formed into words, or be conveyed through the medium of fictitious appearances. A virtuous and upright nation, would be scarcely more willing to mislead the enemy, by false intelligence, or treacherous ambuscade, than by the breach of their engagements, or by feigned demonstrations of friendship. There seems to be no essential difference, between throwing open our arms to embrace them, and advancing towards them with neutral colours, or covering ourselves with a defile or a wood. By the practice of surprise and deceit, we shall oftenest cut off their straggling parties, and shed most blood. By an open display of our force, we shall prevent detachments from being made, and intercept the possibility of supply, without unnecessary bloodshed; and there seems no reason to believe that our ultimate success will be less secure. Why should war be made the science of disingenuousness and mystery, when the plain dictates of good sense would answer all its legitimate purposes? The first principle of defence is firmness and vigilance. The second perhaps, which is not less immediately connected with the end to be attained, is frankness, and the open disclosure of our purpose, even to our enemies. What astonishment, admiration and terror might this conduct excite in those with whom we had to contend? What confidence and magnanimity would accompany it in our own bosoms? Why should not war, as a step towards its complete abolition, be brought to such perfection, as that the purposes of the enemy might be baffled, without firing a musket, or drawing a sword?

Another corollary, not less inevitable, from the principles which have been delivered, is, that the operations of war should be limited, as accurately as possible, to the generating no further evils, than defence inevitably requires. Ferocity ought carefully to be banished from it. Calamity should, as entirely as possible, be prevented, to every individual who is not actually in arms, and whose fate has no immediate reference to the event of the war. This principle condemns the levying military contributions, and the capture of mercantile vessels. Each of these atrocities would be in another way precluded, by the doctrine of simple defence. We should scarcely think of levying such contributions, if we never attempted to pass the limits of our own territory; and every species of naval war would probably be proscribed.

The utmost benevolence ought to be practised towards our enemies. We should refrain from the unnecessary destruction of a single life, and afford every humane accommodation to the unfortunate. The bulk of those against whom we have to contend, are, comparatively speaking, innocent of the projected injustice. Those by whom it has been most assiduously fostered, are entitled to our kindness as men, and to our compassion as mistaken. It has already appeared, that all the ends of punishment are foreign to the transactions of war. It has appeared, that the genuine melioration of war, in consequence of which it may be expected absolutely to cease, is by gradually disarming it of its ferocity. The horrors of war have sometimes been attempted to be vindicated, by a supposition, that the more intolerable it was made, the more quickly would it cease to infest the world. But the direct contrary of this is the truth. Severities beget severities. It is a most mistaken way of teaching men to feel that they are brothers, by imbuing their minds with unrelenting hatred. The truly just man cannot feel animosity, and is therefore little likely to act as if he did.

Having examined the conduct of war, as it respects our enemies, let us next consider it, in relation to the various descriptions of persons by whom it is to be supported. We have seen how little a just and upright war stands in need of secrecy. The plans for conducting a campaign, instead of being, as artifice and ambition have hitherto made them, inextricably complicated, will probably be reduced to two or three variations, suited to the different circumstances, that can possibly occur in a war of simple defence. The better these plans are known to the enemy, the more advantageous will it be to the resisting party. Hence it follows that the principles of implicit faith and military obedience, as they are now understood, will be no longer necessary. Soldiers will cease to be machines. The circumstance that constitutes men machines, in this sense of the word, is not the uniformity of their motions, when they see the reasonableness of that uniformity: it is their performing any motion, or engaging in any action, the object and utility of which they do not clearly understand. It is true that, in every state of human society, there will be men of an intellectual capacity much superior to their neighbours. But defensive war, and every other species of operation, in which it will be necessary that many individuals should act in concert, will perhaps be found so simple in their operations, as not to exceed the apprehension of the most common capacities. It is ardently to be desired that the time should arrive, when no man should lend his assistance to any operation, without, in some degree, exercising his judgment, respecting the honesty, and the expected event, of that operation.

The principles here delivered on the conduct of war, lead the mind to a very interesting subject, that of foreign and distant territories. Whatever may be the value of these principles considered in themselves, they become altogether nugatory, the moment the idea of foreign dependencies is admitted. But, in reality, what argument, possessing the smallest degree of plausibility, can be alleged, in favour of that idea? The mode in which dependencies are acquired, must be either conquest, cession or colonization. The first of these no true moralist or politician will attempt to defend. The second is to be considered as the same thing in substance as the first, but with less openness and ingenuity. Colonization, which is by much the most specious pretence, is however no more than a pretence. Are these provinces held in a state of dependence, for our sake, or for theirs? If for ours, we must recollect that this is still an usurpation, and that justice requires we should yield to others what we demand for ourselves, the privilege of being governed by the dictates of their own reason. If for theirs, they must be told, that it is the business of associations of men to defend themselves, or, if that be impracticable, to look for support to a confederation with their neighbours. They must be told, that defence against foreign enemies is a very inferior consideration, and that no people were ever either wise or happy, who were not left to the fair development of their inherent powers. Can any thing be more absurd, than for the West India islands, for example, to be defended by fleets and armies to be transported across the Atlantic? The support of a mother country extended to her colonies, is much oftener a means of involving them in danger, than of contributing to their security. The connection is maintained, by vanity on one side, and prejudice on the other. If they must sink into a degrading state of dependence, how will they be the worse, in belonging to one state, rather than another? Perhaps the first step towards putting a stop to this fruitful source of war, would be, to annihilate that monopoly of trade which enlightened reasoners at present agree to condemn, and to throw open the ports of our colonies to all the world. The principle which will not fail to lead us right upon this subject of foreign dependencies, as well as upon a thousand others, is the principle delivered in entering upon the topic of war, that that attribute, however splendid, is not really beneficial to a nation, that is not beneficial to the great mass of individuals of which the nation consists.

A country may look for its defence, either to a standing army, or an universal militia.—The former condemned.—The latter objected to, as of pernicious tendency—as unnecessary—either in respect to courage—or discipline.—Of a commander.—Of treaties.—Conclusion.

The last topic which it may be necessary to examine, as to the subject of war, is the conduct it becomes us to observe respecting it, in a time of peace. This article may be distributed into two heads, military establishments, and treaties of alliance.

If military establishments in time of peace be judged proper, their purpose may be effected, either by consigning the practice of military discipline to a certain part of the community, or by making every man, whose age is suitable for that purpose, a soldier.

The preferableness of the latter of these methods to the former, is obvious. The man that is merely a soldier, must always be uncommonly depraved. War, in his case, inevitably degenerates, from the necessary precautions of a personal defence, into a trade, by which a man sells his skill in murder, and the safety of his existence, for a pecuniary recompense. The man that is merely a soldier, ceases to be, in the same sense as his neighbours, a citizen. He is cut off from the rest of the community, and has sentiments and a rule of judgment peculiar to himself. He considers his countrymen as indebted to him for their security; and, by an unavoidable transition of reasoning, believes that, in a double sense, they are at his mercy. On the other hand, that every citizen should exercise in his turn the functions of a soldier, seems peculiarly favourable to that confidence in himself, and in the resources of his country, which it is so desirable he should entertain. It is congenial to that equality, which must operate to a considerable extent, before mankind in general can be either virtuous or wise. And it seems to multiply the powers of defence in a country, so as to render the idea of its falling under the yoke of an enemy, in the utmost degree improbable.

There are reasons however that will oblige us to doubt, respecting the propriety of cultivating, under any form, the system of military discipline in time of peace. It is, in this respect, with nations, as it is with individuals. The man that, with a pistol-bullet, is sure of his mark, or that excels his contemporaries in the exercise of the sword, can scarcely escape those obliquities of understanding, which accomplishments of this sort are adapted to nourish. It is not to be expected, that he should entertain all that confidence in justice, and distaste of violence, which reason prescribes. It is beyond all controversy that war, though the practice of it, under the present state of the human species, should be found, in some instances, unavoidable, is a proceeding pregnant with calamity and vice. It cannot be a matter of indifference, for the human mind to be systematically familiarised to thoughts of murder and desolation. The pupil of nature would not fail, at the sight of a musket or a sword, to be impressed with sentiments of abhorrence. Why expel these sentiments? Why connect the discipline of death with ideas of festivity and splendour; which will inevitably happen, if the citizens, without oppression, are accustomed to be drawn out to encampments and reviews? Is it possible that he, who has not learned to murder his neighbour with a grace, is imperfect in the trade of man?

If it be replied, “that the generating of error is not inseparable from military discipline, and that men may at some time be sufficiently guarded against the abuse, even while they are taught the use of arms”; it will be found upon reflection that this argument is of little weight. If error be not unalterably connected with the science of arms, it will for a long time remain so. When men are sufficiently improved, to be able to handle, familiarly, and with application of mind, the instruments of death, without injury to their dispositions, they will also be sufficiently improved, to be able to master any study with much greater facility than at present, and consequently the cultivation of the art military in time of peace, will have still fewer inducements to recommend it to our choice—To apply these considerations to the present situation of mankind.

We have already seen that the system of a standing army is altogether indefensible, and that a universal militia is a more formidable defence, as well as more agreeable to the principles of justice and political happiness. It remains to be seen, what would be the real situation of a nation, surrounded by other nations, in the midst of which standing armies were maintained, that should nevertheless, upon principle, wholly neglect the art military in seasons of peace. In such a nation it will probably be admitted, that, so far as relates to mere numbers, an army may be raised upon the spur of occasion, nearly as soon, as in a nation the citizens of which had been taught to be soldiers. But this army, though numerous, would be in want of many of those principles of combination and activity, which are of material importance in a day of battle. There is indeed included in the supposition, that the internal state of this people, is more equal and free, than that of the people by whom they are invaded. This will infallibly be the case, in a comparison, between a people with a standing army and a people without one; between a people, who can be brought blindly and wickedly to the invasion of their peaceful neighbours, and a people, who will not be induced to fight but in their own defence. The latter therefore will be obliged to compare the state of society and government, in their own country, and among their neighbours, and will not fail to be impressed with great ardour in defence of the inestimable superiority they possess. Ardour, even in the day of battle, might prove sufficient. A body of men, however undisciplined, whom nothing could induce to quit the field, would infallibly be victorious over their veteran adversaries, who, under the circumstances of the case, could have no accurate conception of the object for which they were fighting, and therefore could not entertain an inextinguishable love for it. It is not certain that activity and discipline, opposed to ardour, have even a tendency to turn the balance of slaughter against the party that wants them. Their great advantage consists, in their power over the imagination, to astonish, to terrify and confound. An intrepid courage in the party thus assailed, would soon convert them, from sources of despair, into objects of contempt.

But it would be extremely unwise in us, to have no other resource, but in the chance of this intrepidity. A resource, much surer, and more agreeable to justice, is in recollecting that the war of which we treat, is a war of defence. Battle is not the object of such a war. An army, which, like that of Fabius, by keeping on the hills, or by whatever other means, rendered it impracticable for the enemy to force them to an engagement, might look with indifference upon his impotent efforts to enslave the country. One advantage, included in such a system of war, is that, as its very essence is protraction, the defending army might, in a short time, be rendered as skilful as the assailants. Discipline, like every other art, has been represented, by vain and interested men, as surrounded with imaginary difficulties, but is, in reality, exceedingly simple; and would be learned much more effectually in the scene of a real war, than in the puppet-show exhibitions of a period of peace.

It is desirable indeed that we should have a commander of considerable skill, or rather of considerable wisdom, to reduce this patient and indefatigable system into practice. This is of greater importance, than the mere discipline of the ranks. But the nature of military wisdom has been greatly misrepresented. Experience in this, as well as in other arts, has been unreasonably magnified, and the general power of a cultivated mind been thrown into shade. It will probably be no long time, before this quackery of professional men will be thoroughly exploded. How often do we meet with those whom experience finds incorrigible; while it is recorded of one of the greatest generals of antiquity, that he set out for his appointment wholly unacquainted with his art, and was indebted for that skill, which broke out immediately upon his arrival, to the assiduity of his enquiries, and a careful examination of those writers by whom the art had most successfully been illustrated? In all events it will be admitted, that the maintenance of a standing army, or the perpetual discipline of a nation, is a very dear price to pay for the purchase of a general, as well as that the purchase would be extremely precarious, if we were even persuaded to consent to the condition. It may perhaps be true, though this is not altogether clear, that a nation by whom military discipline was wholly neglected, would be exposed to some disadvantage. In that case, it becomes us to weigh the neglect and cultivation together, and to cast the balance on the side to which, upon mature examination, it shall appear to belong.

A second article which belongs to the military system in a season of peace, is that of treaties of alliance. This subject may easily be dispatched. Treaties of alliance, if we examine and weigh the history of mankind, will perhaps be found to have been, in all cases, nugatory, or worse. Governments, and public men, will not, and ought not, to hold themselves bound to the injury of the concerns they conduct, because a parchment, to which they or their predecessors were a party, requires it. If the concert demanded in time of need, approve itself to their judgment, and correspond with their inclination, it will be yielded, though they are under no previous engagement for that purpose. Treaties of alliance serve to no other end, than to exhibit, by their violation, an appearance of profligacy and vice, which unfortunately becomes too often a powerful encouragement to the inconsistency of individuals. Add to this, that if alliances were engines as powerful, as they are really impotent, they could seldom be of use to a nation uniformly adhering to the principles of justice. They would be useless, because they are, in reality, ill calculated for any other purposes than those of ambition. They might be pernicious, because it would be beneficial for nations, as it is for individuals, to look for resources at home, instead of depending upon the precarious compassion of their neighbours.

It would be unjust, to dismiss the consideration of this most dreadful, yet perhaps, in the present state of things, sometimes unavoidable, calamity, of war, without again reminding the reader of its true character. It is that state of things, where a man stands prepared to deal slaughter and death to his fellow men. Let us image to ourselves a human being, surveying, as soon as his appetite for carnage is satiated, the scene of devastation he has produced. Let us view him surrounded with the dying and the dead, his arms bathed to the very elbow in their blood. Let us investigate along with him the features of the field, attempt to divide the wounded from the slain, observe their distorted countenances, their mutilated limbs, their convulsed and palpitating flesh. Let us observe the long-drawn march of the hospital-waggons, every motion attended with pangs unutterable, and shrieks that rend the air. Let us enter the hospital itself, and note the desperate and dreadful cases that now call for the skill of the surgeon, even omitting those to which neither skill nor care is ever extended. Whence came all this misery? What manner of creature shall we now adjudge the warrior to be? What had these men done to him? Alas! he knew them not; they had never offended; he smote them to the death, unprovoked by momentary anger, coldly deliberating on faults of which they were guiltless, and executing plans of wilful and meditated destruction. Is not this man a murderer? Yet such is the man who goes to battle, whatever be the cause that induces him. Who that reflects on these things, does not feel himself prompted to say, “Let who will engage in the business of war; never will I, on any pretence, lift up a sword against my brother”?

We have entered, in these chapters, somewhat more at large into the subject of war, than the question respecting it, as connected with the principles of democracy, might seem to require. So far as this is a digression, the importance of the topic may perhaps plead our excuse.

External affairs are of subordinate consideration.—Application.—Further objections to democracy—1. it is unfavourable to secrecy—this proved to be an excellence—2. its movements are too slow—3. too precipitate.

Having thus endeavoured to reduce the question of war to its true principles, it is time that we should recur to the maxim delivered at our entrance upon this subject, that individuals are every thing, and society, abstracted from the individuals of which it is composed, nothing. An immediate consequence of this maxim is, that the internal affairs of the society are entitled to our principal attention, and the external are matters of inferior and subordinate consideration. The internal affairs are subjects of perpetual and hourly concern, the external are periodical and precarious only. That every man should be impressed with the consciousness of his independence, and rescued from the influence of extreme want and artificial desires, are purposes the most interesting that can suggest themselves to the human mind; but the life of man might pass, in a state uncorrupted by ideal passions, without its tranquillity being so much as once disturbed by foreign invasions. The influence that a certain number of millions, born under the same climate with ourselves, and known by the common appellation of English or French, shall possess over the administrative councils of their neighbour millions, is a circumstance of much too airy and distant consideration, to deserve to be made a principal object in the institutions of any people. The best influence we can exert, is that of a sage and upright example.

If therefore it should appear that, of these two articles, internal and external affairs, one must, in some degree, be sacrificed to the other, and that a democracy will, in certain respects, be less fitted for the affairs of war than some other species of government, good sense will not hesitate in the alternative. We shall have sufficient reason to be satisfied, if, together with the benefits of justice and virtue at home, we have no reason to despair of our safety from abroad. A confidence in this article will seldom deceive us, if our countrymen, however little trained to formal rules, and the uniformity of mechanism, have studied the profession of man, understand his attributes and his nature, and have their necks unbroken to the yoke of blind credulity and abject submission. Such men, inured, as we are now supposing them, to a rational state of society, will be full of calm confidence and penetrating activity, and these qualities will stand them in stead of a thousand lessons in the school of military mechanism. If democracy can be proved adequate to wars of defence, and other governments be better fitted for wars of a different sort, this would be an argument, not of its imperfection, but its merit.

It has been one of the objections to the ability of a democracy in war, “that it cannot keep secrets. The legislative assembly, whether it possess the initiative, or a power of control only, in executive affairs, will be perpetually calling for papers, plans and information, cross-examining ministers, and sifting the policy and justice of public undertakings. How shall we be able to cope with an enemy, if he know precisely the points we mean to attack, the state of our fortifications, and the strength and weakness of our armies? How shall we manage our treaties with skill and address, if he be precisely informed of our sentiments, and have access to the instructions of our ambassadors?”

It happens in this instance, that that which the objection attacks as the vice of democracy, is one of its most essential excellencies. The trick of a mysterious carriage is the prolific parent of every vice; and it is an eminent advantage incident to democracy, that, though the proclivity of the human mind has hitherto reconciled this species of administration, in some degree, to the keeping of secrets, its inherent tendency is to annihilate them. Why should disingenuity and concealment be thought virtuous or beneficial on the part of nations, in cases where they would inevitably be discarded with contempt, by an upright individual? Where is there an ingenuous and enlightened man, who is not aware of the superior advantage—that belongs to a proceeding, frank, explicit and direct? Who is there that sees not, that this inextricable labyrinth of reasons of state, was artfully invented, lest the people should understand their own affairs, and, understanding, become inclined to conduct them? With respect to treaties, it is to be suspected that they are, in all instances, superfluous. But, if public engagements ought to be entered into, what essential difference is there between the governments of two countries endeavouring to overreach each other, and the buyer and seller in any private transaction adopting a similar proceeding?

This whole system proceeds upon the idea of national grandeur and glory, as if, in reality, these words had any specific meaning. These contemptible objects, these airy names, have, from the earliest page of history, been made a colour for the most pernicious undertakings. Let us take a specimen of their value from the most innocent and laudable pursuits. If I aspire to be a great poet or a great historian, so far as I am influenced by the dictates of reason, it is that I may be useful to mankind, and not that I may do honour to my country. Is Newton the better, because he was an Englishman; or Galileo the worse, because he was an Italian? Who can endure to put this high-sounding nonsense in the balance, against the best interests of mankind, which will always suffer a mortal wound, when dexterity, artifice and concealment, are made the topics of admiration and applause? The understanding and the virtues of mankind, will always keep pace, with the manly simplicity of their designs, and the undisguised integrity of their hearts.

It has further been objected to a democratical state, in its transactions with foreign powers, “that it is incapable of those rapid and decisive proceedings which, in some situations, have so eminent a tendency to insure success.” If by this objection it be understood, that a democratical state is ill fitted for dexterity and surprise, the rapidity of an assassin, it has already received a sufficient answer. If it be meant, that the regularity of its proceedings may ill accord with the impatience of a neighbouring despot, and, like the Jews of old, we desire a king “that we may be like the other nations,” this is a very unreasonable requisition. A just and impartial enquirer will be little desirous to see his country placed high in the diplomatical roll, deeply involved in the intrigues of nations, and assiduously courted by foreign princes, as the instrument of their purposes. A more groundless and absurd passion cannot seize upon any people, than that of glory, the preferring their influence in the affairs of the globe, to their internal happiness and virtue; for these objects will perpetually counteract and clash with each other.

But democracy is by no means necessarily of a phlegmatic character, or obliged to take every proposition that is made to it, ad referendum, for the consideration of certain primary assemblies, like the states of Holland. The first principle in the institution of government itself, is the necessity, under the present imperfections of mankind, of having some man, or body of men, to act on the part of the whole. Wherever government subsists, the authority of the individual must be, in some degree, superseded. It does not therefore seem unreasonable, for a representative national assembly to exercise, in certain cases, a discretionary power. Those privileges, which are vested in individuals, selected out of the mass by the voice of their fellows, and who will speedily return to a private station, are by no means liable to the same objections, as the exclusive and unsympathetic privileges of an aristocracy. Representation, together with many disadvantages, has this benefit, that it is able, impartially, and with discernment, to call upon the most enlightened part of the nation to deliberate for the whole, and may thus generate a degree of wisdom, and a refined penetration of sentiment, which it would have been unreasonable to expect as the result of primary assemblies.

A third objection more frequently offered against democratical government is, “that it is incapable of that mature and deliberate proceeding, which is alone suitable to the decision of such important concerns. Multitudes of men have appeared subject to fits of occasional insanity: they act from the influence of rage, suspicion and despair: they are liable to be hurried into the most unjustifiable extremes, by the artful practices of an impostor.” One of the most obvious answers to this objection is, that for all men to share the privileges of all, is the law of our nature, and the dictate of justice. The case, in this instance, is parallel to that of an individual in his private concerns. It is true that, while each man is master of his own affairs, he is liable to the starts of passion. He is attacked by the allurements of temptation and the tempest of rage, and may be guilty of fatal error, before reflection and judgment come forward to his aid. But this is no sufficient reason for depriving men of the direction of their own concerns. We should endeavour to make them wise, not to make them slaves. The depriving men of their self-government is, in the first place, unjust, while, in the second, this self-government, imperfect as it is, will be found more salutary than any thing that can be substituted in its place.—Another answer to this objection will occur in the concluding chapters of the present book.

Houses of assembly.—This institution unjust.—Deliberate proceeding the proper antidote.—Separation of legislative and executive power considered.—Superior importance of the latter.—Functions of ministers.

One of the articles which has been most eagerly insisted on, by the advocates of complexity in political institutions, is that of “checks, by which a rash proceeding may be prevented, and the provisions under which mankind have hitherto lived with tranquillity, may not be reversed without mature deliberation.” We will suppose that the evils of monarchy and aristocracy are, by this time, too notorious, to incline the speculative enquirer to seek for a remedy, in either of these. “Yet it is possible, without the institution of privileged orders, to find means that may answer a similar purpose in this respect. The representatives of the people may be distributed, for example, into two assemblies; they may be chosen with this particular view, to constitute an upper and a lower house, and may be distinguished from each other, either by various qualifications of age or fortune, or by being chosen, by a greater or smaller number of electors, or for a shorter or longer term.”

To every inconvenience, that experience can produce, or imagination suggest, there is probably an appropriate remedy. This remedy may either be sought in a more strict prosecution of the principles of reason and justice, or in artificial combinations encroaching upon those principles. Which are we to prefer? No doubt, the institution of two houses of assembly, is contrary to the primary dictates of reason and justice. How shall a nation be governed? Agreeably to the opinions of its inhabitants, or in opposition to them? Agreeably to them undoubtedly. Not, as we cannot too often repeat, because their opinion is a standard of truth, but because, however erroneous that opinion may be, we can do no better. There is no effectual way of improving the institutions of any people, but by enlightening their understandings. He that endeavours to maintain the authority of any sentiment, not by argument, but by force, may intend a benefit, but really inflicts an extreme injury. To suppose that truth can be instilled, through any medium, but that of its intrinsic evidence, is a flagrant and pernicious error. He that believes the most fundamental proposition, through the influence of authority does not believe a truth, but a falshood. The proposition itself he does not understand, for thoroughly to understand it, is to perceive the degree of evidence with which it is accompanied; is to know the full meaning of its terms, and, by necessary consequence, to perceive in what respects they agree or disagree with each other. All that he believes is, that it is very proper he should submit to usurpation and injustice.

It was imputed to the late government of France, that, when they called an assembly of notables in 1787, they contrived, by dividing the assembly into seven distinct corps, and not allowing them to vote otherwise than in these corps, that the vote of fifty persons should be capable of operating, as if they were a majority, in an assembly of one hundred and forty-four. It would have been still worse, if it had been ordained that no measure should be considered as the measure of the assembly, unless it were adopted by the unanimous voice of all the corps: eleven persons might then, in voting a negative, have operated as a majority of one hundred and forty four. This may serve as a specimen of the effects of distributing a representative national assembly into two or more houses. Nor should we suffer ourselves to be deceived, under the pretence, of the innocence of a negative in comparison with an affirmative. In a country in which universal justice was already established, there would be little need of a representative assembly. In a country into whose institutions error has insinuated itself, a negative upon the repeal of those errors, is the real affirmative.

The institution of two houses of assembly, is the direct method to divide a nation against itself. One of these houses will, in a greater or less degree, be the asylum of usurpation, monopoly and privilege. Parties would expire, as soon as they were born, in a country, where opposition of sentiments, and a struggle of interests, were not allowed to assume the formalities of distinct institution.

Meanwhile, a species of check perfectly simple, and which appears sufficiently adequate to the purpose, suggests itself, in the idea of a slow and deliberate proceeding, which the representative assembly should prescribe to itself. Perhaps no proceeding of this assembly should have the force of a general regulation, till it had undergone five or six successive discussions in the assembly, or till the expiration of one month from the period of its being proposed. Something like this is the order of the English house of commons, nor does it appear to be, by any means, among the worst features of our constitution. A system like this, would be sufficiently analogous to the proceedings of a wise individual, who certainly would not wish to determine upon the most important concerns of his life, without a severe examination; and still less would omit this examination, if his decision were destined to be a rule for the conduct, and a criterion to determine upon the rectitude, of other men.

Perhaps, as we have said, this slow and gradual proceeding ought, in no instance, to be dispensed with, by the national representative assembly. This seems to be the true line of separation, between the functions of the assembly as such, and the executive power, whether we suppose the executive separate, or simply place it in a committee of the representative body. A plan of this sort, would produce a character of gravity and good sense, eminently calculated to fix the confidence of the citizens. The mere votes of the assembly, as distinguished from its acts and decrees, might serve as an encouragement to the public functionaries, and as affording a basis of expectation, respecting the speedy cure of those evils of which the public might complain; but they should never be allowed to be pleaded as the complete justification of any action. A precaution like this, would not only tend to prevent the fatal consequences of any precipitate judgment of the assembly within itself, but of tumult and disorder from without. An artful demagogue would find it more easy, to work up the people into a fit of momentary insanity, than to retain them in it for a month, in opposition to the efforts of their real friends to undeceive them. Meanwhile, the consent of the assembly to take their demand into consideration, might reasonably be expected to moderate their impatience.

Scarcely any plausible argument can be adduced in favour of what has been denominated by political writers, a division of powers. Nothing can seem less reasonable, than to prescribe any positive limits to the topics of deliberation in an assembly adequately representing the people; or peremptorily to forbid them the exercise of functions, the depositaries of which are placed under their inspection and censure. Perhaps, upon any emergence, totally unforeseen at the time of their election, and uncommonly important, they would prove their wisdom, by calling upon the people to elect a new assembly, with a direct view to that emergence. But the emergence, as we shall have occasion more fully to observe in the sequel, cannot with any propriety be prejudged, and a rule laid down for their conduct, by a body prior to, or distinct from, themselves. The distinction of legislative and executive powers, however intelligible in theory, will by no means authorise their separation in practice.

Legislation, that is, the authoritative enunciation of abstract or general propositions, is a function of equivocal nature, and will never be exercised in a pure state of society, or a state approaching to purity, but with great caution and unwillingness. It is the most absolute of the functions of government, and government itself is a remedy that inevitably brings its own evils along with it. Administration, on the other hand, is a principle of perpetual application. So long as men shall see reason to act in a corporate capacity, they will always have occasions of temporary emergency for which to provide. In proportion as they advance in social improvement, executive power will, comparatively speaking, become every thing, and legislative nothing. Even at present, can there be any articles of greater importance than those of peace and war, taxation, and the selection of proper periods for the meeting of deliberative assemblies, which, as was observed in the commencement of the present book, are articles of temporary regulation? Is it decent, can it be just, that these prerogatives should be exercised by any power less than the supreme, or be decided by any authority, but that which most adequately represents the voice of the nation? This principle ought, beyond question, to be extended universally. There can be no just reason for excluding the national representative from the exercise of any function, the exercise of which, on the part of the society, is, in any case, necessary.

The functions therefore of ministers and magistrates, commonly so called, do not relate to any particular topic, respecting which they have a right exclusive of the representative assembly. They do not relate to any supposed necessity for secrecy; for secrecy, in political affairs, as we have had occasion to perceive, is rarely salutary or wise; and secrets of state, will commonly be found to consist of that species of information relative to the interests of a society, respecting which the chief anxiety of its depositaries is, that it should be concealed from the members of that society. It is the duty of the assembly to desire information without reserve, for themselves and the public, upon every subject of general importance; and it is the duty of ministers and others to communicate such information, though it should not be expressly desired. The utility therefore of ministerial functions being, in a majority of instances, less than nothing in these respects, there are only two classes of utility that remain to them; particular functions, such as those of financial detail or minute superintendence, which cannot be exercised unless by one or a small number of persons; and measures, proportioned to the demand of those necessities which will not admit of delay, and subject to the revision and censure of the deliberative assembly. The latter of these classes will perpetually diminish as men advance in improvement; nor can any thing politically be of greater importance, than the reduction of that discretionary power in an individual, which may greatly affect the interests, or fetter the deliberations of the many.

Quantity of administration necessary to be maintained.—Objects of administration: national glory—rivalship of nations.—Inferences: 1. complication of government unnecessary.—2. extensive territory superfluous—3. constraint, its limitations.—Project of government: police—defence.

Thus we have endeavoured to unfold and establish certain general principles, upon the subject of legislative and executive power. But there is one interesting topic that remains to be discussed. How much of either of these powers does the public benefit require us to maintain?

We have already seen, that the only legitimate object of political institution, is the advantage of individuals. All that cannot be brought home to them, national wealth, prosperity and glory, can be advantageous only to those self-interested impostors, who, from the earliest accounts of time, have confounded the understandings of mankind, the more securely to sink them in debasement and misery.

The desire to gain a more extensive territory, to conquer or to hold in awe our neighbouring states, to surpass them in arts or arms, is a desire founded in prejudice and error. Usurped authority is a spurious and unsubstantial medium of happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired, than a national splendour that should terrify the world. Mankind are brethren. We associate in a particular district or under a particular climate, because association is necessary to our internal tranquillity, or to defend us against the wanton attacks of a common enemy. But the rivalship of nations is a creature of the imagination. If riches be our object, riches can only be created by commerce; and the greater is our neighbour’s capacity to buy, the greater will be our opportunity to sell. The prosperity of all is the interest of all.

The more accurately we understand our own advantage, the less shall we be disposed to disturb the peace of our neighbour. The same principle is applicable to him in return. It becomes us therefore to desire that he may be wise. But wisdom is the growth of equality and independence, not of injury and oppression. If oppression had been the school of wisdom, the improvement of mankind would have been inestimable, for they have been in that school for many thousand years. We ought therefore to desire that our neighbour should be independent. We ought to desire that he should be free; for wars do not originate in the unbiassed propensities of nations, but in the cabals of government and the propensities that governments inspire into the people at large. If our neighbour invade our territory, all we should desire is to repel him from it, and, for that purpose, it is not necessary we should surpass him in prowess, since upon our own ground his match is unequal. Not to say that to conceive a nation attacked by another, so long as its own conduct is sober, equitable and moderate, is an exceedingly improbable supposition.

Where nations are not brought into avowed hostility, all jealousy between them is an unintelligible chimera. I reside upon a certain spot, because that residence is most conducive to my happiness or usefulness. I am interested in the political justice and virtue of my species, because they are men, that is, creatures eminently capable of justice and virtue; and I have perhaps additional reason to interest myself for those who live under the same government as myself, because I am better qualified to understand their claims, and more capable of exerting myself in their behalf. But I can certainly have no interest in the infliction of pain upon others, unless so far as they are expressly engaged in acts of injustice. The object of sound policy and morality is to draw men nearer to each other, not to separate them; to unite their interests, not to oppose them.

Individuals ought, no doubt, to cultivate a more frequent and confidential intercourse with each other than at present subsists; but political societies of men, as such, have no interests to explain and adjust, except so far as error and violence may render explanation necessary. This consideration annihilates, at once, the principal objects of that mysterious and crooked policy, which has hitherto occupied the attention of governments. Before this principle, officers of the army and the navy, ambassadors and negociators, all the train of artifices that has been invented to hold other nations at bay, to penetrate their secrets, to traverse their machinations, to form alliances and counter-alliances, sink into nothing. The expence of government is annihilated, and, together with its expence, the means of subduing and undermining the virtues of its subjects.

Another of the great opprobriums of political science, is, at the same time, completely removed, that extent of territory, subject to one head, respecting which philosophers and moralists have alternately disputed, whether it be most unfit for a monarchy, or for a democratical government. The appearance which mankind, in a future state of improvement, may be expected to assume, is a policy that, in different countries, will wear a similar form, because we have all the same faculties and the same wants; but a policy, the independent branches of which will extend their authority over a small territory, because neighbours are best informed of each others concerns, and are perfectly equal to their adjustment. No recommendation can be imagined of an extensive, rather than a limited territory, except that of external security.

Whatever evils are included in the abstract idea of government, they are all of them extremely aggravated by the extensiveness of its jurisdiction, and softened under circumstances of an opposite nature. Ambition, which may be no less formidable than a pestilence in the former, has no room to unfold itself in the latter. Popular commotion is like the waters of the earth, capable, where the surface is large, of producing the most tragical effects, but mild and innocuous, when confined within the circuit of an humble lake. Sobriety and equity are the obvious characteristics of a limited circle.

It may indeed be objected, “that great talents are the offspring of great passions, and that, in the quiet mediocrity of a petty republic, the powers of intellect may be expected to subside into inactivity.” This objection, if true, would be entitled to the most serious consideration. But it is to be considered that, upon the hypothesis here advanced, the whole human species would constitute, in some sense, one great republic, and the prospects of him who desired to act beneficially upon a great surface of mind, would become more animating than ever. During the period, in which this state was growing, but not yet complete, the comparison of the blessings we enjoyed, with the iniquities practising among our neighbours, would afford an additional stimulus to exertion.

Ambition and tumult, are evils that arise out of government, in an indirect manner, in consequence of the habits, which government introduces, of concert and combination extending themselves over multitudes of men. There are other evils inseparable from its existence. The object of government, is the suppression of such violence, as well external as internal, as might destroy, or bring into jeopardy, the well being of the community or its members; and the means it employs, are constraint and violence of a more regulated kind. For this purpose the concentration of individual forces becomes necessary, and the method in which this concentration is usually obtained, is also constraint. The evils of constraint have been considered on a former occasion. Constraint, employed against delinquents, or persons to whom delinquency is imputed, is by no means without its mischiefs. Constraint, employed by the majority of a society against the minority, who may differ from them upon some question of public good, is calculated, at first sight at least, to excite a still greater disapprobation.

Both these exertions may indeed appear to rest upon the same principle. Vice is unquestionably no more, in the first instance, than error of judgment, and nothing can justify an attempt to correct it by force, but the extreme necessity of the case. The minority, if erroneous, fall under precisely the same general description, though their error may not be of equal magnitude. But the necessity of the case can seldom be equally impressive. If the idea of secession, for example, were somewhat more familiarised to the conceptions of mankind, it could seldom happen, that the secession of the minority from difference of opinion, could in any degree compare, in mischievous tendency, with the hostility of a criminal, offending against the most obvious principles of social justice. The cases are parallel to those of offensive and defensive war. In putting constraint upon a minority, we yield to a suspicious temper, that tells us the opposing party may hereafter, in some way, injure us, and we will anticipate his injury. In putting constraint upon a criminal, we seem to repel an enemy, who has entered our territory, and refuses to quit it.

Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes, the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defence against external invasion. The first of these purposes, which alone can have an uninterrupted claim upon us, is sufficiently answered, by an association, of such an extent, as to afford room for the institution of a jury, to decide upon the offences of individuals within the community, and upon the questions and controversies, respecting property, which may chance to arise. It might be easy indeed for an offender, to escape from the limits of so petty a jurisdiction; and it might seem necessary, at first, that the neighbouring parishes, or jurisdictions, should be governed in a similar manner, or at least should be willing, whatever was their form of government, to co-operate with us, in the removal or reformation of an offender, whose present habits were alike injurious to us and to them. But there will be no need of any express compact, and still less of any common centre of authority, for this purpose. General justice, and mutual interest, are found more capable of binding men, than signatures and seals. In the mean time, all necessity for causing the punishment of the crime to pursue the criminal, would soon, at least, cease, if it ever existed. The motives to offence would become rare: its aggravations few: and rigour superfluous. The principal object of punishment, is restraint upon a dangerous member of the community; and the end of this restraint would be answered, by the general inspection, that is exercised by the members of a limited circle, over the conduct of each other, and by the gravity and good sense that would characterise the censures of men, from whom all mystery and empiricism were banished. No individual would be hardy enough in the cause of vice, to defy the general consent of sober judgment that would surround him. It would carry despair to his mind, or, which is better, it would carry conviction. He would be obliged, by a force not less irresistible than whips and chains, to reform his conduct.

In this sketch is contained the rude outline of political government. Controversies between parish and parish, would be, in an eminent degree, unreasonable, since, if any question arose, about limits, for example, the obvious principles of convenience could scarcely fail to teach us, to what district any portion of land should belong. No association of men, so long as they adhered to the principles of reason, could possibly have an interest in extending their territory. If we would produce attachment in our associates, we can adopt no surer method, than that of practising the dictates of equity and moderation; and, if this failed in any instance, it could only fail with him who, to whatever society he belonged, would prove an unworthy member. The duty of any society to punish offenders, is not dependent, upon the hypothetical consent of the offender to be punished, but upon the duty of necessary defence.

But however irrational might be the controversy of parish with parish in such a state of society, it would not be the less possible. For such extraordinary emergencies therefore, provision ought to be made. These emergencies are similar in their nature, to those of foreign invasion. They can only be provided against by the concert of several districts, declaring and, if needful, inforcing the dictates of justice.

One of the most obvious remarks that suggests itself, upon these two cases, of hostility between district and district, and of foreign invasion which the interest of all calls upon them jointly to repel, is, that it is their nature to be only of occasional recurrence, and that therefore the provisions to be made respecting them, need not be, in the strictest sense, of perpetual operation. In other words, the permanence of a national assembly, as it has hitherto been practised in France, cannot be necessary in a period of tranquillity, and may perhaps be pernicious. That we may form a more accurate judgment of this, let us recollect some of the principal features that enter into the constitution of a national assembly.

They produce a fictitious unanimity—an unnatural uniformity of opinion.—Causes of this uniformity.—Consequences of the mode of decision by vote—1. perversion of reason—2. contentious disputes—3. the triumph of ignorance and vice.—Society incapable of acting from itself—of being well conducted by others.—Conclusion.—Modification of democracy that results from these considerations.

In the first place, the existence of a national assembly, introduces the evils of a fictitious unanimity. The public, guided by such an assembly, must act with concert, or the assembly is a nugatory excrescence. But it is impossible that this unanimity can really exist. The individuals who constitute a nation, cannot take into consideration a variety of important questions, without forming different sentiments respecting them. In reality, all questions that are brought before such an assembly, are decided by a majority of votes, and the minority, after having exposed, with all the power of eloquence, and force of reasoning, of which they are capable, the injustice and folly of the measures adopted, are obliged, in a certain sense, to assist in carrying them into execution. Nothing can more directly contribute to the depravation of the human understanding and character. It inevitably renders mankind timid, dissembling and corrupt. He that is not accustomed, exclusively to act upon the dictates of his own understanding, must fall inexpressibly short of that energy and simplicity of which our nature is capable. He that contributes his personal exertions, or his property, to the support of a cause which he believes to be unjust, will quickly lose that accurate discrimination, and nice sensibility of moral rectitude, which are the principal ornaments of reason.

Secondly, the existence of national councils produces a certain species of real unanimity, unnatural in its character, and pernicious in its effects. The genuine and wholsome state of mind is, to be unloosed from shackles, and to expand every fibre of its frame, according to the independent and individual impressions of truth upon that mind. How great would be the progress of intellectual improvement, if men were unfettered by the prejudices of education, unseduced by the influence of a corrupt state of society, and accustomed to yield without fear, to the guidance of truth, however unexplored might be the regions, and unexpected the conclusions, to which she conducted us? We cannot advance in the voyage of happiness, unless we be wholly at large upon the stream that would carry us thither: the anchor, that we at first looked upon as the instrument of our safety, will, at last, be found to be the means of detaining our progress. Unanimity of a certain sort, is the result to which perfect freedom of enquiry is calculated to conduct us; and this unanimity would, in a state of perfect freedom, become hourly more conspicuous. But the unanimity, that results from men’s having a visible standard by which to adjust their sentiments, is deceitful and pernicious.

In numerous assemblies, a thousand motives influence our judgments, independently of reason and evidence. Every man looks forward, to the effects which the opinions he avows, will produce on his success. Every man connects himself with some sect or party. The activity of his thought is shackled, at every turn, by the fear, that his associates may disclaim him. This effect is strikingly visible in the present state of the British parliament, where men, whose faculties are comprehensive almost beyond all former example, may probably be found influenced by these motives, sincerely to espouse the grossest and most contemptible errors.

Thirdly, the debates of a national assembly are distorted from their reasonable tenour, by the necessity of their being uniformly terminated by a vote. Debate and discussion are, in their own nature, highly conducive to intellectual improvement; but they lose this salutary character, the moment they are subjected to this unfortunate condition. What can be more unreasonable, than to demand, that argument, the usual quality of which is gradually and imperceptibly to enlighten the mind, should declare its effect in the close of a single conversation? No sooner does this circumstance occur, than the whole scene changes its character. The orator no longer enquires after permanent conviction, but transitory effect. He seeks rather to take advantage of our prejudices, than to enlighten our judgment. That which might otherwise have been a scene of patient and beneficent enquiry, is changed into wrangling, tumult and precipitation.

Another circumstance that arises out of the decision by vote, is the necessity of constructing a form of words, that shall best meet the sentiments, and be adapted to the preconceived ideas, of a multitude of men. What can be conceived, at once more ludicrous and disgraceful, than the spectacle of a set of rational beings, employed for hours together in weighing particles, and adjusting commas? Such is the scene that is incessantly witnessed in clubs and private societies. In parliaments, this sort of business is usually adjusted, before the measure becomes a subject of public inspection. But it does not the less exist; and sometimes it occurs in the other mode, so that, when numerous amendments have been made to suit the corrupt interest of imperious pretenders, the Herculean task remains at last, to reduce the chaos into a grammatical and intelligible form.

The whole is then wound up, with that flagrant insult upon all reason and justice, the deciding upon truth by the casting up of numbers. Thus every thing, that we have been accustomed to esteem most sacred is determined, at best, by the weakest heads in the assembly, but, as it not less frequently happens, through the influence of the most corrupt and dishonourable intentions.

In the last place, national assemblies will by no means be thought to deserve our direct approbation, if we recollect, for a moment, the absurdity of that fiction, by which society is considered, as it has been termed, as a moral individual. It is in vain that we endeavour to counteract the laws of nature and necessity. A multitude of men, after all our ingenuity, will still remain a multitude of men. Nothing can intellectually unite them, short of equal capacity and identical perception. So long as the varieties of mind shall remain, the force of society can no otherwise be concentrated, than by one man, for a shorter or a longer term, taking the lead of the rest, and employing their force, whether material, or dependent on the weight of their character, in a mechanical manner, just as he would employ the force of a tool or a machine. All government corresponds, in a certain degree, to what the Greeks denominated a tyranny. The difference is that, in despotic countries, mind is depressed by an uniform usurpation; while, in republics, it preserves a greater portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily conforms itself to the fluctuations of opinion.

The pretence of collective wisdom is among the most palpable of all impostures. The acts of the society, can never rise above the suggestions of this or that individual, who is a member of it. Let us enquire whether society, considered as an agent, can really become the equal of certain individuals, of whom it is composed. And here, without staying to examine what ground we have to expect, that the wisest member of the society will actually take the lead in it, we find two obvious reasons to persuade us, that, whatever be the degree of wisdom inherent in him that really superintends, the acts which he performs in the name of the society, will be both less virtuous and less able, than the acts he might be expected to perform in a simpler and more unincumbered situation. In the first place, there are few men, who, with the consciousness of being able to cover their responsibility under the name of a society, will not venture upon measures, less direct in their motives, or less justifiable in the experiment, than they would have chosen to adopt in their own persons. Secondly, men who act under the name of a society, are deprived of that activity and energy, which may belong to them in their individual character. They have a multitude of followers to draw after them, whose humours they must consult, and to whose slowness of apprehension they must accommodate themselves. It is for this reason that we frequently see men of the most elevated genius dwindle into vulgar leaders, when they become involved in the busy scenes of public life.

From these reasonings we seem sufficiently authorised to conclude, that national assemblies, or, in other words, assemblies instituted for the joint purpose of adjusting the differences between district and district, and of consulting respecting the best mode of repelling foreign invasion, however necessary to be had recourse to upon certain occasions, ought to be employed as sparingly as the nature of the case will admit. They should either never be elected but upon extraordinary emergencies, like the dictator of the ancient Romans, or else sit periodically, one day for example in a year, with a power of continuing their sessions within a certain limit, to hear the complaints and representations of their constituents. The former of these modes is greatly to be preferred. Several of the reasons already adduced, are calculated to show, that election itself is of a nature not to be employed, but when the occasion demands it. There would probably be little difficulty in suggesting expedients, relative to the regular originating of national assemblies. It would be most suitable to past habits and experience, that a general election should take place, whenever a certain number of districts demanded it. It would be most agreeable to rigid simplicity and equity, that an assembly of two or two hundred districts should take place, in exact proportion to the number of districts by whom that measure was desired.

It will scarcely be denied, that the objections which have been most loudly reiterated against democracy, become null in an application to the form of government which has now been delineated. Here we shall with difficulty find an opening for tumult, for the tyranny of a multitude drunk with unlimited power, for political ambition on the part of the few, or restless jealousy and precaution on the part of the many. Here the demagogue would discover no suitable occasion, for rendering the multitude the blind instrument of his purposes. Men, in such a state of society, might be expected to understand their happiness, and to cherish it. The true reason why the mass of mankind has so often been made the dupe of knaves, has been the mysterious and complicated nature of the social system. Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the artifices, of the state juggler that would mislead him.

Political authority of a national assembly—of juries.—Consequence from the whole.

It remains for us to consider, what is the degree of authority necessary to be vested, in such a modified species of national assembly as we have admitted into our system. Are they to issue their commands to the different members of the confederacy? Or is it sufficient, that they should invite them to co-operate for the common advantage, and, by arguments and addresses, convince them of the reasonableness of the measures they propose? The former of these might at first be necessary. The latter would afterwards become sufficient. The Amphictyonic council of Greece possessed no authority, but that which flowed from its personal character. In proportion as the spirit of party was extirpated, as the restlessness of public commotion subsided, and as the political machine became simple, the voice of reason would be secure to be heard. An appeal, by the assembly, to the several districts would not fail to unite the approbation of reasonable men, unless it contained in it something so evidently questionable, as to make it perhaps desirable that it should prove abortive.

This remark leads us one step further. Why should not the same distinction between commands and invitations, which we have just made in the case of national assemblies, be applied to the particular assemblies or juries of the several districts? At first, we will suppose, that some degree of authority and violence would be necessary. But this necessity does not appear to arise out of the nature of man, but out of the institutions by which he has been corrupted. Man is not originally vicious. He would not refuse to listen to, or to be convinced by, the expostulations that are addressed to him, had he not been accustomed to regard them as hypocritical, and to conceive that, while his neighbour, his parent, and his political governor, pretended to be actuated by a pure regard to his interest or pleasure, they were, in reality, at the expence of his, promoting their own. Such are the fatal effects of mysteriousness and complexity. Simplify the social system, in the manner which every motive, but those of usurpation and ambition, powerfully recommends; render the plain dictates of justice level to every capacity; remove the necessity of implicit faith; and we may expect the whole species to become reasonable and virtuous. It might then be sufficient for juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, without assuming the prerogative of dictating that adjustment. It might then be sufficient for them to invite offenders to forsake their errors. If their expostulations proved, in a few instances, ineffectual, the evils arising out of this circumstance, would be of less importance, than those which proceed from the perpetual violation of the exercise of private judgment. But, in reality, no evils would arise: for, where the empire of reason was so universally acknowledged, the offender would either readily yield to the expostulations of authority; or, if he resisted, though suffering no personal molestation, he would feel so uneasy, under the unequivocal disapprobation, and observant eye, of public judgment, as willingly to remove to a society more congenial to his errors.

The reader has probably anticipated the ultimate conclusion from these remarks. If juries might at length cease to decide, and be contented to invite, if force might gradually be withdrawn and reason trusted alone, shall we not one day find, that juries themselves, and every other species of public institution, may be laid aside as unnecessary? Will not the reasonings of one wise man, be as effectual as those of twelve? Will not the competence of one individual to instruct his neighbours, be a matter of sufficient notoriety, without the formality of an election? Will there be many vices to correct, and much obstinacy to conquer? This is one of the most memorable stages of human improvement. With what delight must every well informed friend of mankind look forward, to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, which has been the only perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which, as has abundantly appeared in the progress of the present work, has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its substance, and no otherwise removable than by its utter annihilation!