VIRTUE, AS CONNECTED WITH CIVIL LIBERTY.

FOR THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLE.

VIRTUE is said to be the principle of popular governments. It may, and unquestionably does exist, in a greater or less degree, in every form and state of society; but, in a political view, there is not that demand for it in most other countries, which there is in this. It is not necessary to the action or support of a despotic government. The strong arm of absolute authority requires, on the part of the subjects, the cooperation of no higher principles, than servile fear and passive obedience. These degrading and unresisting qualities produce that abject submission of the people to the uncontrolled will of a master, in which despotism consists.

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Popular governments, on the contrary, cannot flourish, or even exist long, without virtue. It is their sustenance, their life-blood. In a community, like ours, every thing depends on the tone of blic morals. The reason is obvious, the people are the sovereign; their will, their passions, their caprices direct the movements of the system, and determine its condition. The more the people, therefore, are accustomed to regulate their minds, to repress all selfish and corrupting propensities, to listen to the voice of conscience, to pay a due regard to merit in the distribution of offices, to love their country, to respect the laws, to cherish the interests of learning and religion, to delight in and labour to promote the order and welfare of the community; the more they have, in short, the dispositions and habits, which reason and our religion enjoin; the more benign and salutary the operation of our political institutions will evidently be, and the greater their stability.

The first and great requisite, then, in the citizens of a free state, is that they be virtuous. And to describe all our duties in this relation, would be to write a complete treatise of ethics. Whatever improves one's character as a man, renders him also a better citizen. Whatever elevates a freeman in the scale of moral worth, contributes to the health and vigour and preservation of his government;—a government, which, in its turn, exerts a favourable influence upon the character of the people, in proportion as it is administered agreeably to its genius and spirit. For if by a reaction of the effect upon the cause, the tendency of arbitrary power is, as all history testifies, to corrupt its subjects; the reign of law and justice, which is the perfection of civil liber

ty, acts, on the contrary, not less in unison with the best principles of human nature, with our moral sentiments, with reason and conscience. It is to the soul of man, its faculties and affections, what congeniality of soil and climate is to vegetable nature. In this happy disposition of things, virtue finds those genial influences, which are most propitious to its life and growth.

What can be more demonstrative of the superiority of a free, over an arbitrary government? In the latter system (if system it may be called) virtue has no place allotted to it; in the former it is the one thing needful, the great animating and sustaining principle. It would be absurd to tell the slaves of despotism, that patriotism and public spirit, or even the private and personal virtues, are necessary to the maintenance of their master's authority. He wants no such aid. The noble and generous principles of our nature are regarded by him with an eye of jealousy; they are hostile, and therefore odious, to the tyrant; his strength is the corruption and degradation of his subjects. A republic, on the contrary, from its very frame and texture, supposes the existence of virtue in the people. It is its proper and natural element. There must be some virtue, or liberty soon ceases to breathe. And the more sparingly vice is permitted to mingle its impurities, the fewer and milder will be the disorders incident to the body politic.

While a free people enjoys the exclusive privilege, if I may so speak, of public virtue; every virtue of every individual has some connexion with the good of the state. Temperance is favourable to that state of mind and body, which is necessary to the knowledge and discharge of his various duties. Industry, frugality and economy place him in circumstances to act with independence in bestowing his suffrages. Patience enables, and prudence disposes him, to bear quietly and cheerfully those public burthens, which are unavoidable under every form of government; while fortitude, courage, and patriotism qualify and impel him, to defend the laws, the rights, and the liberties of his country.

The importance of virtue in a republic will be quite as apparent, if we advert to the source of human actions and habits,— the dispositions and affections of the heart. A good man regulates his conduct by the laws of his Creator; he acts from a sense of duty, from a regard to reason and conscience, from a love to God and his fellow creatures. If other considerations have their influence, they hold a place entirely subordinate, and are suffered to act only as auxiliaries. Now, what may we expect, in relation to the public, from a man, who is thus governed and actuated? We may expect, in the first place, that, being superiour

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to the baneful influences of envy, jealousy, avarice and ambition, he will enter into no conspiracies against the liberties of his country, or cabals to disturb its tranquillity; that he will refrain from detraction and calumny to ruin the characters of political rivals; that he will form no projects, employ no means, take advantage of no situation, to enrich or aggrandize himself or his connexions, at the expense of the public. He will not engage in public affairs with the views and feelings of a gamester, selfishly regarding the distinctions and emoluments of office as stakes, to be won by artifice and fraud. Far different will be his sentiments respecting the great interests of society; far different his practice; and if he is ever honoured with the confidence of his countrymen, it will not be, because he has not deserved it.

We may expect, in the next place, that he will endeavour to understand and discharge all the positive duties he owes the state. Sensible of his importance in a country, where the aggregate will of the community, not the good pleasure of an individual, directs, he will bestow a due share of his thoughts and cares on the concerns of the public. He will bow to the majesty of the laws; and will labour by his example and influence to procure for them and their depositaries that general respect, which may supply the place of terrour in absolute governments. Whatever contributes to the security and order, to the prosperity and honour of the community, will have his heart, and, as far as practicable, his hand and his purse. He will, therefore, regard with particular favour the interests of learning, religion and virtue, bestowing his suffrages on the wise and good, and cherishing those institutions, which are designed and calculated to improve the people.

We shall be the more convinced of the necessity of virtue to the preservation of civil liberty, if we consult history. What, but the prevalence of vice, can account for the destruction of all the popular governments, which have successively appeared in the world before our own? What, but that prostration of principle, that effeminacy of character, that selfish disregard of the interests of the state, which grow out of the indulgence of vicious propensities and passions,-envy and jealousy of superiour merit and talents, the love of ease and pleasure, of luxurious and expensive living, avarice, ambition, voluptuousness, and extravagance? Would the Grecian and Roman republics have lost their liberties, had they retained the simplicity and purity of manners, the integrity and vigour of character, the noble and generous devotion, to the public good, which they exhibited at some periods of their history? Was any thing wanting, but virtue, to have rendered the French revolution productive of a durable system of

free government? We all know that it was the excesses and crimes of the republic, which rendered it so short-lived, and occasioned the establishment of despotism.

The important truth I have been considering, shows the peculiar propriety of those Laws, which have for their object the protection and improvement of our morals. Such are the laws, to restrain the use of ardent spirits; to prevent gambling, vagrancy, licentiousness, and profane swearing; to enforce a due observance of the sabbath; to promote the diffusion of knowledge and piety, by encouraging schools, academies, colleges, and all institutions of learning and religion. Laws of this sort are conformable to the genius of the government; they serve as props to our political edifice; and are, therefore, eminently fit and useful. It is, indeed, this consideration, particularly, which gives our rulers their authority to interfere with the morals and religion of the people. The zeal, however, which prompts to such legislation, ought to be tempered with wisdom; for if it infringe private rights and go so far as to lose the support of public opinion, it may produce a reaction injurious to the most salutary usages and measures. By striving to obtain too much, men sometimes lose every thing.

My subject also manifests the singular folly and wickedness of unnecessarily passing laws, which have a tendency to corrupt the people;-laws, for instance, which are apt to be productive of fraud and perjury; which are vexatious and oppressive, and, therefore, being odious to large classes of citizens, are particularly liable to be violated. I say unnecessarily, because measures of this character are, no doubt, sometimes unavoidable, such is the order and constitution of human affairs. There is, indeed, some temptation to violate the most common and indispensable laws. This is sufficiently evinced by the frequent occurrence of crimes. While, therefore, it is the duty of rulers to refrain, as far as possible, from such measures, as involve extraordinary temptations; it is the duty of the people, when such measures do take place, to regard them as special trials of their virtue, and as parts of those circumstances, which a wise Providence has ordered for their moral discipline and improvement.

From this source our moral and religious societies derive one of their strongest recommendations to public patronage. The Society for the Suppression of Intemperance,-the Evangelical Missionary Society,-Bible Societies, all are valuable in this view. By promoting the improvement of individuals and classes of men, such institutions contribute to the preservation of our social system, our fair fabric of liberty, law, morality and religion, that inestimable order of things, which leaves us to enjoy New Series-vol. II.

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all that man is capable of enjoying, and which invites us to be all that man is capable of being.

Nothing can place in a clearer light the importance of attending to the qualifications of candidates for office. If virtue is required in every citizen, it can by no means be dispensed with in those, whose examples and opinions derive weight from their elevation in society. It is yet very common for men, either to lose sight of their consciences at elections, or to imagine that persons, who are very exceptionable in their principles and characters, may nevertheless be very good agents for the public. This absurd notion is probably suggested by the responsibility which is attached to office. Rulers, it is thought, will conduct right, because, if they do not, they will at least lose their places. Experience cannot, surely, have been duly attended to by those, whom such reasoning satisfies; otherwise the frequent abuses of trust, which happen, must have convinced them of its fallacy. Besides, responsibility has its limits; it influences only to a certain extent, and within a certain sphere; it does not reach to the secret practices of rulers, nor does it take cognisance of much that is omitted to be done,-of the neglect of opportunities for doing good, which keen-eyed zeal for the public service discovers and improves. Advantageous as the tribunal of public opinion certainly is, it is far from being a complete security for the faithful exercise of delegated power. Look well, then, to the characters of those, whom you clothe with authority. Consider the magnitude of the concerns intrusted to them; consider, above all things, that they are the guardians of the public morals.

Has Divine Providence seen fit to place us in circumstances, which present inducements and a field for the practice of virtue, which, perhaps, no other nation on earth possesses? Are the consequences of our principles, habits, and actions, be they good or bad, of greater importance, than they would be under a different form of government? Is our situation, at the same time, singularly favourable to the development and exercise of our intellectual and moral powers? Have we an opportunity to act as rational and accountable beings,-to be literally and truly men? Is it true, also, that not only our present comfort and enjoyment, but our most valuable interests,-interests, which respect the whole of our existence,-the simplicity and purity of our divine religion, and those qualities of heart and mind and life which constitute worth of character, depend in no small degree on the continuance and healthy condition of our political organization? And is not our responsibility proportionably great? To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required. Much is given to us,―more, than was ever bestowed on any other peo