disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at
defiance the accumulated experience of ages.

The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There are some
which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective
bodies of society. Of this description are the love of power or the
desire of pre-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of power, or the
desire of equality and safety. There are others which have a more
circumscribed though an equally operative influence within their
spheres. Such are the rivalships and competitions of commerce between
commercial nations. And there are others, not less numerous than either
of the former, which take their origin entirely in private passions;
in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of leading
individuals in the communities of which they are members. Men of this
class, whether the favorites of a king or of a people, have in too many
instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext
of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national
tranquillity to personal advantage or personal gratification.

The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a
prostitute,(1) at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of
his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of
the SAMMIANS. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the
MEGARENSIANS,(2) another nation of Greece, or to avoid a prosecution
with which he was threatened as an accomplice of a supposed theft of
the statuary Phidias,(3) or to get rid of the accusations prepared to
be brought against him for dissipating the funds of the state in the
purchase of popularity,(4) or from a combination of all these causes,
was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war, distinguished in
the Grecian annals by the name of the PELOPONNESIAN war; which, after
various vicissitudes, intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the
ruin of the Athenian commonwealth.

The ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister to Henry VIII.,
permitting his vanity to aspire to the triple crown,(5) entertained
hopes of succeeding in the acquisition of that splendid prize by the
influence of the Emperor Charles V. To secure the favor and interest of
this enterprising and powerful monarch, he precipitated England into a
war with France, contrary to the plainest dictates of policy, and at the
hazard of the safety and independence, as well of