understanding and integrity, those trials of a resolute and vigorous
spirit, which adorn the annals of a people, and leave to future ages a
subject of just admiration and applause. But if we suppose that the end is
attained, and that men no longer act, in the enjoyment of liberty from
liberal sentiments, or with a view to the preservation of public manners;
if individuals think themselves secure without any attention or effort of
their own; this boasted advantage may be found only to give them an
opportunity of enjoying, at leisure, the conveniencies and necessaries of
life; or, in the language of Cato, teach them to value their houses, their
villas, their statues, and their pictures, at a higher rate than they do
the republic. They may be found to grow tired in secret of a free
constitution, of which they never cease to boast in their conversation, and
which they always neglect in their conduct.

The dangers to liberty are not the subject of our present consideration;
but they can never be greater from any cause than they are from the
supposed remissness of a people, to whose personal vigour every
constitution, as it owed its establishment, so must continue to owe its
preservation. Nor is this blessing ever less secure than it is in the
possession of men who think that they enjoy it in safety, and who therefore
consider the public only as it presents to their avarice a number of
lucrative employments; for the sake of which, they may sacrifice those very
rights which render themselves objects of management or of consideration.

From the tendency of these reflections, then, it should appear, that a
national spirit is frequently transient, not on account of any incurable
distemper in the nature of mankind, but on account of their voluntary
neglects and corruptions. This spirit subsisted solely, perhaps, in the
execution of a few projects, entered into for the acquisition of territory
or wealth; it comes, like a useless weapon, to be laid aside after its end