not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never
exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to
render others contemptible and wretched.


BAD LAWS PRODUCE BASE SUBSERVIENCY.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. In such a country as this they
are of all bad things the worst, worse by far than anywhere else; and
they derive a particular malignity even from the wisdom and soundness of
the rest of our institutions. For very obvious reasons you cannot trust
the crown with a dispensing power over any of your laws. However, a
government, be it as bad as it may, will, in the exercise of a
discretionary power, discriminate times and persons; and will not
ordinarily pursue any man when its own safety is not concerned. A
mercenary informer knows no distinction. Under such a system, the
obnoxious people are slaves, not only to the government, but they live
at the mercy of every individual; they are at once the slaves of the
whole community, and of every part of it; and the worst and most
unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they most depend.

In this situation men not only shrink from the frowns of a stern
magistrate, but they are obliged to fly from their very species. The
seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes.
The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. Their tables and beds are
surrounded with snares. All the means given by Providence to make life
safe and comfortable are perverted into instruments of terror and
torment. This species of universal subserviency, that makes the very
servant who waits behind your chair the arbiter of your life and
fortune, has such a tendency to degrade and abase mankind, and to