thing to corrupt by compromise, nor confound by contrivance.
Public measures appeal of themselves to the understanding of the Nation,
and, resting on their own merits, disown any flattering applications to
vanity. The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however
successfully it may be practised in mixed Governments, is inconsistent
with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes are necessary, they
are of course advantageous; but if they require an apology, the apology
itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man thus imposed upon, or
why does he impose upon himself?

When men are spoken of as kings and subjects, or when Government
is mentioned under the distinct and combined heads of monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, what is it that reasoning man is to
understand by the terms? If there really existed in the world two or
more distinct and separate elements of human power, we should then see
the several origins to which those terms would descriptively apply;
but as there is but one species of man, there can be but one element of
human power; and that element is man himself. Monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy, are but creatures of imagination; and a thousand such may be
contrived as well as three.

From the Revolutions of America and France, and the symptoms that have
appeared in other countries, it is evident that the opinion of the world
is changing with respect to systems of Government, and that revolutions
are not within the compass of political calculations. The progress of
time and circumstances, which men assign to the accomplishment of great
changes, is too mechanical to measure the force of the mind, and the
rapidity of reflection, by which revolutions are generated: All the old
governments have received a shock from those that already appear, and
which were once more improbable, and are a greater subject of wonder,
than a general revolution in Europe would be now.

When we survey the wretched condition of man, under the monarchical and
hereditary systems of Government, dragged from his home by one power,
or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies,
it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general
revolution in the principle and construction of Governments is
necessary.

What is government more than the management of the affairs of a Nation?
It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular
man or family, but of the whol