5337. MONARCHY, Evils of.—
If anybody
thinks that kings, nobles or priests are
good conservators of the public happiness, send
him here [France]. It is the best school in
the universe to cure him of that folly. He will
see here, with his own eyes, that these descriptions
of men are an abandoned confederacy
against the happiness of the mass of the people.
The omnipotence of their effect cannot be better
proved than in this country particularly, where,
notwithstanding the finest soil upon earth, the
finest climate under heaven, and a people of the
most benevolent, the most gay and amiable character
of which the human form is susceptible;
where such a people, I say, surrounded by so
many blessings from nature, are loaded with
misery, by kings, nobles and priests, and by
them alone.—
To George Wythe. Washington ed. ii, 7.
Ford ed., iv, 268.
(P.
1786)
