p.

31

voluntarily create such a power, they can be governed ; if
they will not, they can not be governed ; that is, there can
be no regular administration of just laws without a coercive
power. If men will not have a king, they must have laws
and magistrates, armed with power to bring them all into obedience. If this is not the fact, there is no free govern-
ment.

We hear it constantly proclaimed, that men may be
governed by reason. Why then have they never before
been governed by reason? Why do not men govern their
social actions without law? Why do not parties in contro-
versy settle their private disputes by the dictates of their
reason? Why are courts, consisting of men uninterested in
the controversies of individuals, established to decide upon
questions of private rights? If men are capable of govern-
ing themselves by reason, why have all democratic and
republican governments come to ruin? Why have they not
been permanent?

Corruption, it will be said, has ruined them. True ;
and this is conceding the whole question. It is the de-
pravity of man which has ruined all former free govern-
ments, and which will ruin ours.

We have already had terrible examples of the manner
in which men govern themselves without a master, that is,
not only without a king, but without a competent force of
law. And it is not a little singular, that when the citizens
of Baltimore had suffered immensely by popular violence,
they had no remedy except to organize a military force of
volunteers for their protection. What is more worthy of
notice, they gave the command to one who had, all his life,