434. NA.TURAL AND CIVIL 



Written law, vrill lose their force, and utility «■ 

 Their government will immediately begin to 

 change : And when the people have themselves 

 lost the cause, the principle, and the spirit of 

 freedom, they will no longer be capable of a 

 free government : They are better suited for 

 the restraints of aristocracy, or what is far bet- 

 ter, for the regulations of monarchy. The con- 

 stitutions and the laws of such a people, will no 

 more preserve their freedom, than the tombs 

 and the coffins of Montesquieu and Franklin, 

 will retain their abilities and virtues-. 



There is not any thing, which in its own na- 

 ture is more variable, than the state of society. 

 When the minds of men are roused up by great 

 objects to great pursuits, and their ambition is 

 guided by a sense of honor and virtue, a nation 

 rises to the highest attainments, and to the most 

 dignified appearance, that the human race ever 

 assumes ; but when little motives, influence lit- 

 tle minds, to pursue little objects, by little meas- 

 ures, the event will be the vmihnum ; the low- 

 est state of depression, to which society can de- 

 scend : And of both these states, ^\Q.rj natiou 

 and every government is susceptible. Voltaire 

 has somewhere said, that no one would suspect 

 the Swedes in his day, were the same people 

 that performed such exploitis in the time of 

 Charles the twelfth. We cannot expect that 

 republican virtue and honor will ever arise to 

 a more solid or brilliant appearance, than it put 

 on, in the long and arduous struggle for Ameri- 

 can Independence ; and in the duplicity, intol- 

 erance, avarice and insolence of party politicians, 

 there is [1806] something extremely humbling,- 



