University of Virginia Library

7773. SELF-GOVERNMENT, French people and.—

The people of France have
never been in the habit of self-government,
are not yet in the habit of acknowledging
that fundamental law of nature, by which
alone self-government can be exercised by a
society, I mean the lex majoris partis. Of
the sacredness of this law, our countrymen
are impressed from their cradle, so that with
them it is almost innate.—
To John Breckenridge. Ford ed., vii, 417.
(Pa., 1800)