Gazette Of The United States

Good Government is to the body politic, what discipline is to individuals—in a state of nature, the materials of which members of civilized society may be formed, are unconnected with those numerous inveterate prejudices, and false ideas of happiness, which are inseparably attendant on a voluptuous and vicious state of civilization,—a government therefore which will probably be competent to forming the social habits and manners of men in a savage state, should be simple in its construction, and plain in all its applications to their exigencies.

But when a Constitution of Government is contemplated for a people who have long been in a civilized situation, whose affairs are become involved and perplexed-whose habits and manners are corrupted and dissipated, who entertain false ideas of character-are impatient of all restraint. and confound liberty with licentiousness-whose taste is vitiated, whose emulation is guided by a vain ambition, and a fondness for distinctions founded on false principles, the work of government becomes arduous and difficult in the highest degree— in such a state of things all ideas of discipline will be spurned at till the diseases of the public mind become inveterate-a system of government which shall answer any salutary purpose in such circumstances, must possess a tone of energy and efficiency, which mankind will very seldom submit to voluntarily—and this I take to be the origin of Tyranny-for society cannot exist without government, either free or arbitrary.-

History and experience unitedly proclaim that discipline alone can preserve freedom-a discipline which is the genuine effect of a firm government; for we may just as reasonably expect that a total neglect of school discipline will produce a wise, virtuous and intrepid rising generation, as that a relaxed system of things which suffers every man to do whatever is right in his own eyes, will produce virtuous citizens, and perpetuate freedom.