1833. CORRUPTION, Government and.—
In every government on earth is some trace
of human weakness, some germ of corruption
and degeneracy, which cunning will discover,
and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and
improve. Every government degenerates
when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.
The people themselves, therefore, are its only
safe depositories. And to render even them
safe, their minds must be improved to a certain
degree. This, indeed, is not all that is
necessary, though it be essentially necessary.
An amendment to our Constitution [Virginia]
must here come in aid of the public
education. The influence over government
must be shared among all the people. If
every individual which composes their mass,
participates of the ultimate authority, the government
will be safe; because the corrupting
the whole mass will exceed any private resources
of wealth; and public ones cannot be
provided but by levies on the people. In this
case, every man would have to pay his own
price. The government of Great Britain has
been corrupted, because but one man in ten
has a right to vote for members of Parliament.
The sellers of the government, therefore,
get nine-tenths of their price clear. It
has been thought that corruption is restrained
by confining the right of suffrage to a few of
the wealthier of the people; but it would be
more effectually restrained, by an extension
of that right, to such members as would bid
defiance to the means of corruption.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 390.
Ford ed., iii, 254.
(1782)
