and pensions; the same instruments by which they contended that conscience ought to be regulated; for they say, that free opinion as to the use of property will be as pernicious to the publick, as free opinion in relation to religion was, according to their exploded doctrines. Luxury is now made the heresy, by which the new order of apparent zealots, but cool calculators of dollars and cents, advance their designs. Wealth and power to priests was the pretended cure of heresy; wealth and power to corporations and combinations and pensioners, is the pretended cure of luxury. The orators long persuaded mankind, that they would damn themselves by heresy, if they enjoyed a freedom of opinion as to religion; they now endeavour to persuade them that they will ruin themselves by luxury, if they enjoy a freedom of opinion as to property.

In selecting general principles, we ought to be guided by general effects, and not by particular cases. Several devout ministers undoubtedly deserved the salaries derived from an absolute power in a government over the freedom of conscience; and several worthy pensioners undoubtedly deserve also the pensions derived from an absolute power in governments over the freedom of property; but both powers are so incurably exposed to abuses, and an exercise of judicial powers and legislative patronage so incurably infected with qualities of irreconcilable enmity with the virtue, happiness and interest of a community, that the policy of being led astray from the general good, by particular cases, is simply that of preferring an oppressive to a free and moderate government.

It is an error to suppose, that the people approve of bad measures, because they are silent. In all nations, the majority approve of political morality; and they are silent, both from the influence of government and a want of time or information to detect its infraction. Therefore, they are seldom roused into resistance, except by the extremity of the evil. Our governments are so happily contrived to influence those in power in favour of truth and justice, as to infuse into the people a reliance on their structure, which yet farther disposes them to be inattentive to the laws. But, this reliance dictates a cautious watchfulness against the introduction of any new principles, by means of laws or legislative patronage, undermining the basis of the reliance itself, by having the effect of exchanging an influence in favour of truth and justice, designed to be estab

lished by the structure of our governments, for an influence in favour of partiality, exclusive privileges and erroneous principles. It is impossible to convince the suitors of legislative tribunals, the feeders upon legislative patronage, or the receivers of exclusive privileges, bestowed, not by constitutions, but by laws; that legislative bodies ought not to possess the unholy power of converting publick property into private donations: but, if the question was propounded to the people, silent as they have been upon the subject, "whether legislatures had not "better employ the portion of their sessions, worse than wasted "in trying and deciding cases of cupidity, in a thorough ex"amination of treasuries, and an annual disentanglement of "the destinations of the taxes," would the answer of their moral sense and common sense accord with the practice, to which they have indiscreetly submitted? Do they really approve of the new policy of sacrificing the general good to private interest?

When the human mind receives a strong impulse towards either truth or error, it is difficult to check the current of conviction or prejudice, and to give it a new direction. The impulse derived from our revolutionary principles was strongly adverse to legislative sovereignty and exclusive privileges, and a counter-current in their favour has been gradually introduced. One flows from truth, and the other from error. Being opposed, they are of different characters. In which are we to look for that mercenary temper which has notoriously generated for the few last years an unusual number of instances of moral turpitude, and materially affected the national character? Morals are regulated by religion or by laws. Our religion will not be accused of imperfection. A love of money or of property, nurtured by fraud, becomes sordid and base; but nurtured by justice, it is a source of civilization, of virtue, of happiness, and the bond of society. If it could be destroyed, civilized society would perish. But the value of property is a temptation to fraud, and the end of government is to restrain and correct this temptation. If then, governments themselves shall yield to it by contriving means to transfer property from the community to individuals, each culprit in contemplating their example will conclude, that if this be right in relation to a whole nation, it cannot be wrong in relation to one man; and so the national character is changed.

SECTION 14.

THE LAWS OF NATIONS.

This formidable phalanx has with great ingenuity been impressed into the service of spherical sovereignty. The philosophers who invented them, were actuated by the benevolent intention of civilizing the intercourse between nations, and softening the evils of war; and not by the wicked design, of increasing domestick oppression, by dissolving restrictions imposed for the security of civil liberty. They did not intend by restraining the ravages of avarice and ambition, when exercised against nations, to turn them loose upon individuals. Little would be gained from these laws by mankind, at the expense of opening those sluices at home, through which they have so often been flooded with misery; and if the laws invented by one set of benevolent philosophers, to civilize nations in their commerce with each other, should demolish those contrived by another set of benevolent philosophers, to procure internal national happiness, the former will evidently produce more evil than good. The selfconstituted legislators, who compiled the laws of nations, drew their conclusions from the then established principle "that "governments were invested with sovereignty;" but our constitutions, framed by legitimate legislators, are founded upon the principle "that there is no sovereignty among men, except "that species which resides in the people or society." The question therefore is, whether a false principle shall destroy a true one; or whether rules recommended without authority ought to supersede those established in the most perfect mode. The old principle placed nations in a state of vassalage to governments; the new one places governments in a state of dependance upon nations. Without launching into the ocean of despotism, created by the old principle, it will suffice to observe, that governments could sell or give away the people, or their property, and alter or abolish the form of the government

itself. The power of treating away a part of the community, and transferring them to any degree of tyranny, far transcends that of taxing them without their consent. The cortes of Spain saw the enormity of this power, and endeavoured to moderate it, by prohibiting its exercise, without the concurrence of a representative assembly: but we have gone farther; and by withholding from our governments the powers of sovereignty of which this was one, abolished it entirely, by rooting out the error from which it sprouted up. The rights of declaring war, and of creating corporations or granting exclusive privileges, as considered by the writers upon the laws of nations, were rights of sovereignty; but the case of war is specially provided for by the federal constitution, because the federal go vernment, as having no sovereignty, could not otherwise have declared it; whilst no provision is made for the cases of corpo rations and exclusive privileges, because none was necessary; these, therefore, were abolished, as being powers derived from the old doctrine of a sovereignty in governments. As the powers of making war and peace were necessary, it became necessary also to provide for them, not as emanations from the principle of a sovereignty in governments, but as delegated powers conferred by the social sovereignty, or natural right of selfgovernment. Several conclusions result from this reasoning. No powers in relation to war are derived from the old doctrine of a sovereignty in governments under our system; and none can be justly inferred from the conclusions of the writers upon the laws of nations, deduced from that old doctrine. As it was thought necessary to delegate powers in relation to war to the federal government, it is plain that without such a delegation, the framers of the constitution did not conceive that the federal government would possess any powers at all in relation to war. If the federal government would have possessed no powers at all in relation to war, had none been delegated to it by the states, because it has no sovereignty, either innate or conventional; the conclusion amounts to a demonstration, that it has no power to create corporations, or grant exclusive privileges, because such powers must either flow from an innate sovereignty, or from an express delegation, and neither of these sources of power exists in the cases of corporations, pensions and exclusive privileges.

But this reasoning is endeavoured to be overthrown, by inferring the powers of sovereignty from a delegated power; as the power of establishing banks, from the power of taxation; the power of granting exclusive privileges and pensions, from the power of regulating commerce and appropriating publick money; and the power of making roads and canals, from the power of declaring war. To deduce the powers of sovereignty from the delegated powers, the greater powers from the lesser, undefined and unlimited powers from defined and limited; is an evident inversion of reasoning, which terminates in the conclusion, that the limited powers substituted for the unlimited powers of sovereignty, supposed to have been abolished, furnish inferences which revive these same unlimited powers of sovereignty.

But in the case of war, this mode of reasoning was not foreseen. When two nations are at war, a third may subject itself to a legitimate attack from either, by certain actions; yet even in this case, which calls for a prompt decision, the constitution pays no regard to the idea of a spherical sovereignty; and disregarding the language of the laws of nations, assigns the power, as in every other case where a declaration of war may be necessary, to a department, not as being sovereign, but as being a trustee of the sovereign power. This trustee alone possesses a right to involve the United States in war; and no other department, nor any individual, has a better right to do so, than a constable has to bring the same calamity upon England. As the laws of nations cannot deprive congress of any power with which it is invested by the constitution, so they cannot invest congress or any other department, with any power not bestowed by the constitution. If the laws of nations could bestow any powers under our system, there would be great difficulty in ascertaining the department which should receive them. They contemplate the powers of declaring war and making peace, as residing in an executive department; but the constitution divides them, and does not intrust the president with either. Which then of these three departments shall receive the new powers, drawn from the law of nations? As to these, the constitution is silent, except that so far from recognizing any sovereignty in either, it rejects the idea entirely by a division of powers allotted to sovereignty by the laws