University of Virginia Library

3643. HAPPINESS, Laws and.—

The
laws which must affect the happiness of
every people must flow from their own habits,
their own feelings, and the resources of their
own minds. No stranger to these could
possibly propose regulations adapted to them.
Every people have their own particular
habits, ways of thinking, manners, &c., which
have grown up with them from their infancy,
are become a part of their nature, and to
which the regulations which are to make
them happy must be accommodated.—
To William Lee. Washington ed. vii, 56.
(M. 1817)