ignorance of restraining governments. He never considered whether a corrupt nation might not establish a free
political system, as avaricious mercantile partners establish
just articles of partnership; and that it would be the interest of the majority to do so, because slavish political systems, inevitably prey upon majorities; nor whether this
interest, united with common sense, would not induce majorities, since they cannot be lasting tyrants themselves, to
absolve themselves from tyranny. Orders and national
virtue united, says Machiavel, produce liberty; but if virtue disappears, liberty ceases. Others, split up this dogma.
Virtue, say they, will produce liberty; and without it,
liberty cannot exist. Orders, says Mr. Adams, will produce liberty. If in the case of the compound dogma of
Machiavel, virtue and liberty disappear, whilst orders remain, the orders were not the cause of the liberty. If the
virtue and liberty remain, after orders disappear, as in
America, the orders caused neither the virtue nor the
liberty. And if orders will produce liberty, according to
Mr. Adams, the necessity for virtue to preserve liberty does
not exist.
This confusion arises from the substitution of moral artifice, which may be good or bad, for good moral principles. Virtue, or moral goodness, may overpower an evil moral artifice, and for a short space preserve national liberty, against the assaults of a bad form of government. National virtue, pervading both the governours and people, like individual virtue, is a sponsor for happiness; and whilst political writers tell us that an assembly of good moral principles, embraced by the term virtue, will produce their natural effects, they say nothing in favour of evil moral artifices. The general acknowledgement of the capacity of good moral principles to correct a bad form of government, is a vast encouragement to expect from them a capacity to correct bad governours; and hence our policy has resorted to the good and virtuous moral principle of responsibility, or a strong code of political law, which can exist and
