deluded the world into a state of indecision. If it means
that the members of a society cannot form equal and just
laws for self government, unless these members are virtuous, it is false; but if it means that liberty cannot be preserved without virtuous laws. it is true. That vicious men
can constitute themselves into a society by laws, free, just
and virtuous, respecting themselves, is proved by the associations of nobles, priests, merchants, stockjobbers and robbers, which are contrived, whether the members are virtuous or not, to preserve individual social rights. And that virtuous men cannot constitute themselves into a free society, by oppressive, unjust and vicious laws, is obviously
true. As fraudulent laws enslave a virtuous nation, just
laws will preserve the liberty of a vicious one. It is in the
governing principles, and not in the subject to be governed,
that the virtue or vice resides, which causes the freedom or
oppression. But kings, nobles, priests and stockjobbers,
have transposed this idea, and insisted upon the necessity of
virtue in the subject to be governed, to create prétences for
vicious laws to feed their own appetites.
A nation cut up into orders or separate interests, cannot exert national self government, because the national self no more exists, than a polypus, after being cut into four or five pieces, which forage in different directions or upon each other. Suppose it dissected into four, the ennobled, military, hierarchical and stock; which of these could pronounce any other opinion than its own? Each would constitute a distinct moral self, and could only entertain opinions, naturally flowing from its own moral nature; the ennobled, military, hierarchical and stock selves, must as necessarily have opinions, distinct from each other, as the English, French, Spanish and German nations. And these opinions would be more frequently contradictory, than the opinions of those nations, because the interests of domestick factions would more frequently clash.
The experiments for balancing power among the nations of Europe, produce effects analagous to those for
