5658. NATIONS, Representation and.—
The [representative principle] has taken deep
root in the European mind, and will have its
growth; their despots, [351]
sensible of this, are
already offering this modification of their
governments, as if of their own accord. In
stead of the parricide treason of Bonaparte,
in perverting the means confided to him as a
republican magistrate, to the subversion of
that republic and erection of a military despotism
for himself and his family, had he
used it honestly for the establishment and
support of a free government in his own
country, France would now have been in
freedom and rest; and her example operating
in a contrary direction, every nation in Europe
would have had a government over
which the will of the people would have had
some control. His atrocious egotism has
checked the salutary progress of principle,
and deluged it with rivers of blood which are
not yet run out. To the vast sum of devastation
and of human misery, of which he
has been the guilty cause, much is still to be
added. But the object is fixed in the eye of
nations, and they will press on to its accomplishment
and to the general amelioration of
the condition of man. What a germ have we
planted, and how faithfully should we cherish
the parent tree at home!—
To Benjamin Austin. Washington ed. vi, 520.
Ford ed., x, 8.
(M.
1816)
