stice? Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than
monarchies? Are not the former administered by MEN as well as the
latter? Are there not aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires
of unjust acquisitions, that affect nations as well as kings? Are
not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage,
resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent
propensities? Is it not well known that their determinations are often
governed by a few individuals in whom they place confidence, and are,
of course, liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those
individuals? Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change
the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and
enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been
as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the
prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity
of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce, in many
instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the
one and for the other? Let experience, the least fallible guide of human
opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.

Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of them,
Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as often
engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring monarchies
of the same times. Sparta was little better than a wellregulated camp;
and Rome was never sated of carnage and conquest.

Carthage, though a commercial republic, was the aggressor in the very
war that ended in her destruction. Hannibal had carried her arms into
the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before Scipio, in turn,
gave him an overthrow in the territories of Carthage, and made a
conquest of the commonwealth.

Venice, in later times, figured more than once in wars of ambition,
till, becoming an object to the other Italian states, Pope Julius II.
found means to accomplish that formidable league,(9) which gave a deadly
blow to the power and pride of this haughty republic.

The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts and taxes,
took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe. They had
furious contests with England for the dominion of the sea, and were
among the most persevering and most implacable of the opponents of Louis
XIV.

In the government of Britain the representati