such a subject is inadmissible, because it finally amounts
to an accusation upon Providence, as if she had left to man no other
choice with respect to government than between two evils, the best of
which he admits to be "an attaint upon principle, and an outrage upon
society."

Passing over, for the present, all the evils and mischiefs which
monarchy has occasioned in the world, nothing can more effectually
prove its uselessness in a state of civil government, than making it
hereditary. Would we make any office hereditary that required wisdom and
abilities to fill it? And where wisdom and abilities are not necessary,
such an office, whatever it may be, is superfluous or insignificant.

Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the
most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or
idiot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but
to be a king requires only the animal figure of man--a sort of breathing
automaton. This sort of superstition may last a few years more, but it
cannot long resist the awakened reason and interest of man.

As to Mr. Burke, he is a stickler for monarchy, not altogether as a
pensioner, if he is one, which I believe, but as a political man. He
has taken up a contemptible opinion of mankind, who, in their turn, are
taking up the same of him. He considers them as a herd of beings that
must be governed by fraud, effigy, and show; and an idol would be as
good a figure of monarchy with him, as a man. I will, however, do him
the justice to say that, with respect to America, he has been very
complimentary. He always contended, at least in my hearing, that the
people of America were more enlightened than those of England, or of
any country in Europe; and that therefore the imposition of show was not
necessary in their governments.

Though the comparison between hereditary and elective monarchy,
which the Abbe has made, is unnecessary to the case, because the
representative system rejects both: yet, were I to make the comparison,
I should decide contrary to what he has done.

The civil wars which have originated from contested hereditary
claims, are more numerous, and have been more dreadful, and of longer
continuance, than those which have been occasioned by election. All the
civil wars in France arose from the hereditary system; they were either
produced by hereditary claims, or by the imperfection of the hereditary
form, which admits o