1272. CINCINNATI SOCIETY, Objections to.—
The objections of those who are
opposed to the institution shall be briefly
sketched. They urge that it is against the
Confederation—against the letter of some of
our constitutions, against the spirit of all of
them—that the foundation on which all these
are built is the natural equality of man, the
denial of every preeminence but that annexed
to legal office, and, particularly, the denial of
preeminence by birth; that, however, in their
present dispositions, citizens might decline accepting
honorary instalments into the order,
a time may come, when a change of dispositions
would render these flattering, when a
well-directed distribution of them might draw
into the order all the men of talents, of office
and wealth, and, in this case, would probably
procure an ingraftment into the government;
that in this, they will be supported by their
foreign members, and the wishes and influence
of foreign courts; that experience has
shown that the hereditary branches of modern
governments are the patrons of privilege
and prerogative, and not of the natural rights
of the people, whose oppressors they generally
are; that, besides these evils, which are remote,
others may take place more immediately;
that a distinction is kept up between the
civil and military, which it is for the happiness
of both to obliterate; that when the
members assemble they will be proposing to
do something, and what that something May
be, will depend on actual circumstances; that
being an organized body under habits of subordination,
the first obstructions to enterprise
will be already surmounted; that the moderation
and virtue of a single character have
probably prevented this Revolution from being
closed, as most others have been, by a subversion
of that liberty it was intended to establish;
that he is not immortal, and his successor,
or some of his successors, may be led
by false calculation into a less certain road to
glory.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. i, 334.
Ford ed., iii, 466.
(A.
April. 1784)
