A

would be required to purchase elections for proper instruments, or to purchase the suffrages of some already in their seats. party pardons many crimes, as well as lesser faults. "It is treason for any Venetian senator to have any private conference with foreign ambassadors and agents; and one article of the charge, which took off Barnevelt's head, was, for that he held familiarity and converse with the Spanish ambassador in time of war." Although receiving bribes from foreign ambassadors ought to be punished with the utmost severity, and all uncommon familiarity with them avoided, as suspicious and dishonorable, such extremes as these of Venice and of Holland, in the case of Barnevelt, may as well be avoided. But in a simple democracy it will be found next to impossible to prevent foreign powers from making a party, and purchasing an interest. An ambassador will have a right to treat with all the members, as parts of the sovereignty, and therefore may have access to those who are least on their guard and most easily corrupted. But in a mixed government, where the executive is by itself, the ministers only can be purchased, who, being few, are more easily watched and punished; besides, that it is the executive power only that is managed by ministers; and this often cannot be completed but by concurrence of the legislature. The difficulties of corrupting such a government, therefore, are much greater, as both the legislative, executive, and judicial power must be all infected, or there will be danger of detection and punishment.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

CONCLUSION.

It should have been before observed, that the Western Empire fell in the fifth century, and the Eastern in the fifteenth. Augustulus was compelled by Odoacer, King of the Heruli, in 475, to abdicate the Western Empire, and was the last Roman who possessed the imperial dignity at Rome. The dominion of Italy fell, soon afterwards, into the hands of Theodoric the Goth. The Eastern Empire lasted many centuries afterwards, till it was annihilated by Mahomet the Great, and Constantinople was taken in the year 1453. The interval between the fall of these two empires, making a period of about a thousand years, is called THE MIDDLE AGE.* During this term, republics without number arose in Italy; whirled upon their axles or single centres; foamed, raged, and burst, like so many waterspouts upon the ocean. They were all alike ill constituted; all alike miserable; and all ended in similar disgrace and despotism. It would be curious to pursue our subject through all of them whose records have survived the ravages of Goths, Saracens, and bigoted Christians; through those other republics of Castile, Arragon, Catalonia, Galicia, and all the others in Spain; through those in Portugal; through the several provinces that now compose the kingdom of France; through those in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, &c. But, if such a work should be sufficiently encouraged by the public, (which is not probable, for mankind, in general, dare not as yet read or think upon CONSTITUTIONS,) it is too extensive for my forces, and ought not to be done in so much haste. The preceding has been produced upon the spur of a particular occasion, which made it necessary to write and publish with precipitation, or it might have been useless to have published at all. The whole has been done in the midst of other occupa

Barbeyrac's Preface to his History of Ancient Treaties. Corps Dipl. tom. xxii. Harris's Philological Inquiries, part iii. chap. 1.

tions, in so much hurry, that scarce a moment could be spared to correct the style, adjust the method, pare off excrescences, or even obliterate repetitions, in all which respects it stands in need of an apology. The investigation may be pursued to any length.

All nations, from the beginning, have been agitated by the same passions. The principles developed here will go a great way in explaining every phenomenon that occurs in the history of government. The vegetable and animal kingdoms, and those heavenly bodies whose existence and movements we are as yet only permitted faintly to perceive, do not appear to be governed by laws more uniform or certain than those which regulate the moral and political world. Nations move by unalterable rules; and education, discipline, and laws, make the greatest difference in their accomplishments, happiness, and perfection. It is the master artist alone who finishes his building, his picture, or his clock. The present actors on the stage have been too little prepared by their early views, and too much occupied with turbulent scenes, to do more than they have done. Impartial justice will confess that it is astonishing they have been able to do so much. It is for the young to make themselves masters of what their predecessors have been able to comprehend and accomplish but imperfectly.

A prospect into futurity in America, is like contemplating the heavens through the telescopes of Herschell. Objects stupendous in their magnitudes and motions strike us from all quarters, and fill us with amazement! When we recollect that the wisdom or the folly, the virtue or the vice, the liberty or servitude, of those millions now beheld by us, only as Columbus saw these times in vision, are certainly to be influenced, perhaps decided, by the manners, examples, principles, and political institutions of the present generation, that mind must be hardened into stone that is not melted into reverence and awe. With such affecting scenes before his eyes, is there, can there be, a young American indolent and incurious; surrendered up to dissipation and frivolity; vain of imitating the loosest manners of countries, which can never be made much better or much worse? A profligate American youth must be profligate indeed, and richly merits the scorn of all mankind.

* Barlow's Vision of Columbus.

The world has been too long abused with notions, that climate and soil decide the characters and political institutions of nations. The laws of Solon and the despotism of Mahomet have, at different times, prevailed at Athens; consuls, emperors, and pontiffs have ruled at Rome. Can there be desired a stronger proof, that policy and education are able to triumph over every disadvantage of climate? Mankind have been still more injured by insinuations, that a certain celestial virtue, more than human, has been necessary to preserve liberty. Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue. The best republics will be virtuous, and have been so; but we may hazard a conjecture, that the virtues have been the effect of the well ordered constitution, rather than the And, perhaps, it would be impossible to prove that a republic cannot exist even among highwaymen, by setting one rogue to watch another; and the knaves themselves may in time be made honest men by the struggle.

cause.

It is now in our power to bring this work to a conclusion with unexpected dignity. In the course of the last summer, two authorities have appeared, greater than any that have been before quoted, in which the principles we have attempted to defend have been acknowledged.

The first is, an ORDINANCE of Congress, of the thirteenth of July, 1787, for the Government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the River Ohio.

The second is, the REPORT of the Convention at Philadelphia, of the seventeenth of September, 1787.

The former confederation of the United States was formed upon the model and example of all the confederacies, ancient and modern, in which the federal council was only a diplomatic body. Even the Lycian, which is thought to have been the best, was no more. The magnitude of territory, the population, the wealth and commerce, and especially the rapid growth of the United States, have shown such a government to be inadequate to their wants; and the new system, which seems admirably calculated to unite their interests and affections, and bring them to an uniformity of principles and sentiments, is equally well combined to unite their wills and forces as a single nation. A result of accommodation cannot be supposed to reach the ideas of perfection of any one; but the conception of such an idea, and the

deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a plan, is, without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen. That it may be improved is not to be doubted, and provision is made for that purpose in the report itself. A people who could conceive, and can adopt it, we need not fear will be able to amend it, when, by experience, its inconveniences and imperfections shall be seen and felt.1

1 Dr. Price, whose publication gave rise to this work, seems to have been convinced by it. In a letter addressed to the author, he says,

"I cannot be sorry that I have given occasion for your book, by the publication of M. Turgot's Letter. At the time of this publication, I was entirely ignorant that you had delivered any opinion, with respect to the sentiment in the passage to which you have objected. I have lately written several letters to America, and in some of them I have taken occasion to mention your publication, and to say that you have convinced me of the main point which it is intended to prove; and that I wish I had inserted a note to signify the difference of opinion between M. Turgot and me on that point. The subject of civil government, next to religion, is of the highest importance to mankind. It is now, I believe, better understood than ever it was. Your book will furnish a help towards further improvement, and your country will, I hope, give such an example of this improvement as will be useful to the world.”