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-effectual in another country, or age: – or in the
same country, under a changed aspect of aff-
-airs. "One country, if it did not inflict the most
exemplary vengeance upon murderers & robberses
would soon be ruined by robberies & murders.

Our age requires the severity of punishments
to be increased, another will allow them to be diminished. If a country be disturbed by
any civil commotion, the evils arising out of it
must be corrected by new edicts. In time of
war, all humanity would be forgotten amidst the
din of arms, if men were not awed by a more
than common dread of punishment. One
nation is more prone than others to some particular
vice – & that vice will ruin it, unless it be most
rigidly restrained". What a spirit of evil, what
a carelessness of the public good will he betray,
who shall take offence at such diversities of
punishment – seeing they are the best adapted to
secure obedience to those laws of men, which
are but the transcript of the eternal laws of God!

A government is not a mere
tredmill' treadmill, where each officer must go precisely
the same rounds as his predecessor, & consider his duty ground out, and his labors done; – but an
active, vitall, force, with ever fresh energies – with
new appliances – with constant, & unwearied