1274. CINCINNATI SOCIETY, Sentiment in France.—
What has heretofore
passed between us on this institution, makes
it my duty to mention to you that I have
never heard a person in Europe, learned or unlearned,
express his thoughts on this institution,
who did not consider it as dishonorable
and destructive to our governments; and
that every writing which has come out since
my arrival here [Paris] in which it is mentioned,
considers it, even as now reformed, as
the germ whose development is one day to
destroy the fabric we have reared. I did not
apprehend this while I had American ideas
only. But I confess that what I have seen in
Europe has brought me over to that opinion;
and that though the day may be at some distance,
beyond the reach of our lives, perhaps,
yet it will certainly come, when a single fibre
left of this institution will produce an hereditary
aristocracy, which will change the form
of our governments from the best to the worst
in the world. To know the mass of evil
which flows from this fatal source, a person
must be in France. He must see the finest
soil, the finest climate, the most compact
State, the most benevolent character of people,
and every earthly advantage combined, insufficient
to prevent this scourge from rendering
existence a curse to twenty-four out
of twenty-five parts of the inhabitants of this
country. With us, the branches of this institution
cover all the States. The southern
ones at this time are aristocratical in their
disposition; and that that spirit should grow
and extend itself, is within the natural order
of things. I do not flatter myself with the im
mortality of our governments; but I shall
think little also of their longevity, unless this
germ of destruction be taken out. When the
society themselves shall weigh the possibility
of evil against the impossibility of any good
to proceed from this institution, I cannot help
hoping they will eradicate it. I know they
wish the permanence of our governments as
much as any individuals composing them.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. ii, 61.
Ford ed., iv, 328.
(P.
Nov. 1786)
