Rome, it may be thought, did not die of a lethargy, nor perish by the
remission of her political ardours at home. Her distemper appeared of a
nature more violent and acute. Yet if the virtues of Cato and of Brutus
found an exercise in the dying hour of the republic, the neutrality, and
the cautious retirement of Atticus, found its security in the same
tempestuous season; and the great body of the people lay undisturbed below
the current of a storm, by which the superior ranks of men were destroyed.
In the minds of the people the sense of a public was defaced; and even the
animosity of faction had subsided: they only could share in the commotion,
who were the soldiers of a legion, or the partisans of a leader. But this
state fell not into obscurity for want of eminent men. If at the time of
which we speak, we look only for a few names distinguished in the history
of mankind, there is no period at which the list was more numerous. But
those names became distinguished in the contest for dominion, not in the
exercise of equal rights: the people was corrupted; so great an empire
stood in need of a master.

Republican governments, in general, are in hazard of ruin from the
ascendant of particular factions, and from the mutinous spirit of a
populace, who, being corrupted, are no longer fit to share in the
administration of state. But under other establishments, where liberty may
be more successfully attained if men are corrupted, the national vigour
declines from the abuse of that very security which is procured by the
supposed perfection of public order.

A distribution of power and office; an execution of law, by which mutual
encroachments and molestations are brought to an end; by which the person
and the property are, without friends, without cabal, without obligation,
perfectly secured to individuals, does honour to the genius of a nation;
and could not have been fully established, without those exertions of