liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and
insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty
republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror
and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually
agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they
were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of
tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only
serve as short-lived contrast to the furious storms that are to
succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open to view, we
behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection
that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the
tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of
glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a
transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us
to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction
and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted
endowments for which the favored soils that produced them have been
so justly celebrated.
From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics
the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against
the forms of republican government, but against the very principles
of civil liberty. They have decried all free government as
inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves
in malicious exultation over its friends and partisans. Happily for
mankind, stupendous fabrics reared on the basis of liberty, which
have flourished for ages, have, in a few glorious instances, refuted
their gloomy sophisms. And, I trust, America will be the broad and
solid foundation of other edifices, not less magnificent, which will
be equally permanent monuments of their errors.
But it is not to be denied that the portraits they have sketched