preceding
age had been guilty of equal enormities, was permitted, on relinquishing
the place of perpetual dictator, to end his days in quiet retirement; and
the undisturbed security which Augustus ever afterwards enjoyed, affords
sufficient proof, that all apprehension of danger to his person was
merely chimerical.

(151) We have hitherto considered this grand consultation as it might be
influenced by the passions or prejudices of the emperor: we shall now
take a short view of the subject in the light in which it is connected
with considerations of a political nature, and with public utility. The
arguments handed down by history respecting this consultation are few,
and imperfectly delivered; but they may be extended upon the general
principles maintained on each side of the question.

For the restoration of the republican government, it might be contended,
that from the expulsion of the kings to the dictatorship of Julius
Caesar, through a period of upwards of four hundred and sixty years, the
Roman state, with the exception only of a short interval, had flourished
and increased with a degree of prosperity unexampled in the annals of
humankind: that the republican form of government was not only best
adapted to the improvement of national grandeur, but to the security of
general freedom, the great object of all political association: that
public virtue, by which alone nations could subsist in vigour, was
cherished and protected by no mode of administration so much as by that
which connected, in the strongest bonds of union, the private interests
of individuals with those of the community: that the habits and
prejudices of the Roman people were unalterably attached to the form of
government established by so long a prescription, and they would never
submit, for any length of time, to the rule of one person, without making
every possible effort to recover their liberty: that though despotism,
under a mild and wise prince, might in some respects be regarded as
preferable to a constitution which was occasionally exposed to the
inconvenience of faction and popular tumults, yet it was a dangerous
experiment to abandon the government of the nation to the contingency of
such a variety of characters as usually occurs in the succession of
princes; and, upon the whole, that the interests of the people were more
safely entrusted in the hands of annual magistrates elected by
themselves, than in those of any individual whose power