University of Virginia Library

8249. TALENTS, Republics and.—

I
hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences
of elective over hereditary successions,
that the talents which nature has provided
in sufficient proportion, should be
selected by the society for the government of
their affairs, rather than that this should be
transmitted through the loins of knaves and
fools, passing from the debauches of the
table to those of the bed.—
To President Washington. Washington ed. iii, 466. Ford ed., vi, 107.
(M. 1792)