There can be no infallible criterion for defining the nature of a government, except its acts. If the acts of a monarchy, aristocracy and democracy are the same, these forms of government are to a nation essentially the same also. To contend for forms only, is to fight for shadows. The United States did not go to war for nothing but forms. A government is substantially good of bad, in the degree that it produces the happiness or misery of a nation. I see but little difficulty in finding a mode of detecting the fallacy of form, and the frauds of profession. If we can determine the quality in human nature, from which political evil has chiefly proceeded under every form of government, this quality is the cause which can corrupt any form. Instead of amusing ourselves with these forms, not to be confided in, it behooves us to search for a remedy, able to remove or control the cause itself.

Cupidity, greed or monopoly, both in the savage and civilized state, is the quality of human nature, always requiring control, and always striving to break down the restraints imposed upon it.  To resist this quality, the United States endured the evils of a long war with a powerful nation.  They had seen a limited monarchy tried in the parent country, as remedy for this bad quality of human nature; but ineffectually; because a considerable power remained with the king, and an absolute power was conceded to or usurped the government, of distributing property.  The hostile principles, of leaving men to be enriched by their own industry, or of enriching them by the favors of the government, were to be weighed against each other; that which made many poor to enrich a few was rejected, and that which encouraged industry was preferred, in the most distinct manner, as I shall hereafter prove.

Almost all governments an have espoused and nourished the sprit of greed, which they were instituted to discipline by justice; and have betrayed the weak, whom it was their duty to protect.  In assuming a power of distributing property by law, they have reduced it in a great degree to a destiny, approximating to its savage destiny, when subjected to force.  From this cause have arisen the most pernicious imperfections of society.  Aristocracies and democracies by usurping this despotic power, in imitation of monarchs, have driven nations into a circle of forms, through which they have perpetually returned to the oppression they intended to escape.  Had the essentials rather than the structure of governments, attracted the attention of mankind, they would not have trusted to any theory, however excellent, asserting it to be the duty of government to protect rights; under a system of legislation, by which governments of the worst forms destroy them.  They would have discovered, that a power of distributing property according to its pleasure, has made governments of the best forms, bad; and that a remedy for an evil, poisonous to the best theories, ought to awaken their solicitude and ingenuity.  For want of this remedy, republics, of the finest theoretical structure, have universally died more prematurely, even than absolute monarchies; because, the more numerous the depositaries of an absolute power over property have become, the more widely has the spirit of greed or monopoly been excited.  If this universal cause of oppression must exist, that government which afforded the most channels for its operation, is the worst; and hence has arisen the general preference of mankind for monarchy.  Governments of all forms having exercised an absolute power over property, they have experimentally determined , that the oppression derived from this source was the most tolerable, when the tyrants were the least numerous.

If the age has at length arrived, in which knowledge is able to break the fetters forged by fraud and credulity, political enquiry, as in other sciences, make take its stand on the eminence of truth, hail with exultation the happy advent, and direct its arrows straight forward against an error fraught with plagues of mankind.

To define the nature of a government truly, I would say, that a power of distributing property, able to gratify greed and monopoly, designated a bad one. And the governments absent of every such power, is designated a good one.

Of what value is an exchange of one system of monopoly for another?  How shall we estimate the difference between noble and clerical orders, and between combinations of exclusive economic privileges?    Is pure greed better than some honor and some sanctity?  The encroachments upon property by noble and clerical combinations, once fixed by law, remained stationary; and each individual could calculate his fate with some certainty.  But economic combination, once sanctioned as constitutional, will perpetually open new channels, and breed new invaders, whose whole business it will be, to make inroads upon the territories of industry.  Legislatures will become colleges for teaching the science of getting money by monopolies or favors.  The deluge laws will become as great in the United States, as was once the deluge of papal indulgences in Europe for effecting the same object.  What an unaccountable feature of the human character it is, that it should exert so much ingenuity to get the property of others, and be so dull in finding out means for the preservation of its own?

The morality of the gospel and that of monopoly, seem to me, not to bear the least resemblance to each other.  A Christian “loves man.  His light must shine before men.  He keeps his judgment and does justice.  He trusts in the Lord and does good.  He lives in goodness and honesty.  He is a doer and not a hearer only of the divine law.  Whoever doeth not right, is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.  Repentance and avoidance of sin, constitute the claim to the atonement of a savior.  By their works ye shall know them.”

The pope of Rome for many centuries persuaded the people of Europe, that he fulfilled all these texts of scripture, but uttering annually a great number of indulgences, to cheat the people of money.

Is there a man who could be so infatuated, as to foster zealously both bible and missionary societies, and also a spirit of greed and monopoly?  Geographical malice, combined with frauds, individual deceit, and civil commotion, some of the effects of this latter policy, suggest the idea, that the same person is equally zealous to convert the heathens to Christianity, and the Christians to heathenism.  This ideal character may be also a philosopher, who ridicules the notion of being saved by faith without works; and yet contends that people ought to confide in forms without acts, and take it for granted that their property will be safe under a theory, which exercises an absolute power over it.  If he should make an eloquent speech, one half in favor of the theory of equal laws, and the other half in favor of actual exclusive privileges, what would we think?  that it was like placing Christ on the car of Juggernaut, and dressing the United States in British regimentals.

There are sundry points of resemblance between the English revolution in the time of Charles the first, and ours, replete with edification.  Let’s compare.  The English reformation of religion, by compromising with rapaciousness of individuals, and by retaining sundry of the principles and habits of popery, inoculated the government with a poison, which diffused its virulence throughout the body of politics, and contaminated the blessings promised by the experiment.  Those who resisted the frauds of selfishness, and the artifices of ambitions were called puritans; and the derision of a nickname, united with excesses produced by oppression, to render the doctrine of freedom of religion, both ridiculous and detestable.  Those who contended for it, were successfully represented as wild visionaries, whose views were unnatural and impracticable.  Yet to these puritans the United States are indebted for the religious freedom they enjoy; and the whole world, for a refutation of the arguments advanced by ambition and greed, to obstruct the progress of political improvement, and the advancement of human happiness.

The same contrivances practiced in England to destroy religious freedom, are using in the United States to defeat civil liberty.  The Puritanism of republican principles is ridiculed; it is called democracy; and violations of the freedom of property (an important principle of our civil Puritanism) are providing combustibles for some calamitous explosion.  Our political reformation is daily corrupted by the principles and habits of the English system, as was the English religious reformation, by the principles and habits of popery; and we are exchanging the pure principles of the revolution, for the garbage of aristocracy, and compromises with venality.  By disregarding these principles, our fluctuations of parties is invested with power, have been made to resemble the trinket called a Kaleidoscope, which at each revolution exhibits new scenes of glittering delusions, while the colorful bits from which they are reflected, remain substantially the same.  The remedy for an evil so mischievous is that by which religious freedom has been established.  Freedom of property will beget civil liberty, as freedom of conscience has become religious.  The success of one experiment proves the other to be practicable.  Every man, except he belong to a privileged combination, is as much interested to effect a freedom of property, as he is to maintain a freedom of religion, except he could become a priest of an established and endowed hierarchy.  Perhaps the head of a political faction, which in all reality is not all to different than the head of any religious cult.  (i.e. the Pope.)

The English protestants had adopted a variety of imaginary habits and opinions.  The several American States also entertained a variety of opinions and habits, fixed by real interest, more reasonable and more stubborn, as being derived from natural and unconquerable circumstances.  Each of the sects in England, after the religious revolution was established, as power fluctuated among them, endeavored when uppermost, to impose its own opinions and habits upon others.  The apparel of the clergy, surplices, tippets, caps, hoods and crosiers;  and ceremonies; such as the sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the mode of administering the sacrament, and consecration and powers of bishops; all inconsiderable compared with the cardinal end of religious freedom; became subjects of controversy in England.  The endowment of certificate holders, banking corporations, exclusive privileges, compulsory laws over free will in the employment of earnings of industry, and violations of the local interests and habits of States, more materially affecting the cardinal end of civil liberty, and became subjects of controversy in the United States.

In England, the force of opinions, less substantial, produced a frightful civil war.  In the United States, opinions, better founded, have already produced awful ideas of dissolving the union.  In England, the religious controversies terminated in an act of uniformity, by which a majority of the people are cruelly oppressed; there are more meeting houses than churches, and more dissenters than conformists; yet by bribery with public money, so as exorbitantly to increase taxation, the majority are both excluded from civil offices, and subjected to the payment of tithes for the suppression of their own opinions and interests.  In the earlier years of the United States, the majority of the people of each state, were subjected to the payment of more than tithes, to deprive themselves of free will as to their own interest, and to foster exclusive privileges.  Our division into state governments of great extent, and embracing a great variety of local circumstances, has rendered a compulsory uniformity of temporal interests, habits and opinions infinitely more difficult, than a religious uniformity in England; and require means, more coercive and severe to effect it.  A very powerful standing army, so necessary in England for one purpose, would be more indispensable here for the other.  Whole states will more sensibly feel, and be more able to resist burdens, inflicted to enrich privileged civil sects, bearing heavily on their local interests and habits, than individual only combined by the slight threads of ceremonials and speculative prejudices.  Had the freedom of religion been  established in England for one purpose, would be more indispensable here for the other.  Whole states had more sensibly felt, and were more able to resist the burdens, inflicted to enrich privileged civil sects, bearing heavily on their local interests and habits, than individuals only combined by the slight threads of ceremonials and speculative prejudice.

Had the freedom of religion been established in England at the Reformation, a mass civil war, national inquietude and oppression would have been avoided.  A greater mass of these evils was foreseen by the framers of the Union, and attempted to be avoided, by restricting the powers united with the local interests, habits, and opinions of each state; in fact, by securing the freedom of property. 

This wise precaution was suggested by the character of human nature, sound reason, substantial justice, and unequivocal experience drawn from the consequences of the different policy pursued by England in her religious revolution.  Why ought not industry to enjoy a freedom of will, similar to that demonstrated in the United States, to be so wholesome and happy in the case of religion?  How can an expensive, compulsory uniformity in one case, generate blessings, when it has generated curses in the other?  It was not intended by our revolution to destroy the freedom of will, in relation either to SPECULATION, actual habits or personal interests.  It designed to draw a plain line between the foreign relations of the United States, and the internal concerns  of each state; and the vitality of the union as well as the vitality of religion, lies in a strict adherence to the same principle.  Each state, however different in its habits and interests, like each sect however different in its tenets and ceremonials, has its liberty and happiness embarked and hazarded upon its preservation; and if any are tempted by the bribe of delusive advantages to abandon it, they will, like the religious sects which yielded to the temptations of pride, enthusiasm and greed, when possessed of the majority, produce civil war, forge chains for themselves, and obtain a toleration of property instead of its freedom.  A combination assails republican Puritanism, as protestant Puritanism was assailed by a combination of Roman Catholic princes, and for the same reason.  It obstructs frauds.

The maxim of James the first, “no bishop no king,” was a political truth; not limited to the idea of hierarchical orders, but an exemplification of necessity of intermediate orders between an individual and a nation and a government, whether pecuniary, civil, religious, or military; whether they be called lords, mandarins, bashaws, generals, bishops, bankers, exclusive privileges, corporations, or companies.  Adhering to the maxim in its amplified sense, the English government for its own security, has extended it gradually from bishops and a nobility, to an army and to a vast pecuniary order; which , though compounded of various corporations, companies and exclusive priviliges, as the noble order is compounded of a variety of titles, is united in the support and defense of the government, whatever it may do, as being dependant upon it for all the priviliges, however denominated, enjoyed by its favor.  These dependant orders are even better props of an oppressive government than a hereditary nobility. Accordingly, they are more ardent in defenses of political severities, and more rapidly create the evil of excessive taxation, than the orders of ancient coinage.  Hereditary titles were more honorable than lucrative, embraced and corrupted fewer individuals, and extorted less from the savings of industry, than dependant privileges entirely mercenary, and only capable of being fostered by perpetual drafts from the majority of nations.  And therefore, the majority of nations have accomplished in England a degree of oppression, which the mercenary privileges could ever effect.  Did our revolution meditate an intermediate order between the government and the people?  Aren’t the privileged mercenary combinations, dependant on the government, both such an order, and of the worst species?  Have we then adopted the essence of James’s maxim, and subscribed to the opinion, “no exclusive privileges, no republic?”

During the reigns of the Stuarts, there existed two kinds of Puritanism; one for purifying religious, the other for purifying civil government.  The natural affinity between to the objects, combined the individuals devoted to each; and although the imperfect state of political knowledge, and a spirit of fanaticism obstructed their efforts, and prevented their complete success, yet the English were indebted to this double impulse for some accessions both of civil and religious liberty, which constituted a platform upon which we have raised a more perfect superstructure.  The civil and religious patriots of that period were united by the conviction, that a despotic power over the mind will absorb a despotic or tyrannical power over property; and that a despotic power over property will absorb a despotic power over mind.  The English government, by retaining such a power over property, has been enabled to retain a similar power over the mind.  Our revolutionary patriots evidently entertained the same opinion, and therefore endeavored to destroy both kinds of despotism; and their complete success in the establishment of religious freedom, should not render the freedom of property hopeless, especially when it is considered, that if the freedom of property is impracticable, the freedom of conscious will become abortive.  The consideration of the principles from which our Constitution was formed, and still exists, can never be forgotten or overlooked by any individual.