the law of merchants is applicable, have made approved application of that law, and have received it, in its fullest extent, as a part of the law of England. Should a similar conduct be observed by the tribunals of the United States, in the numerous and very important cases, to which the national constitution extends their judicial authority?

If a similar conduct ought to be observed by those tribunals; what an immense improvement has taken place in the application and administration of the law of nations! Hitherto that great law has been applied and administered by the force or by the pleasure of the parties in controversy in the United States, it can now be applied and administered by impartial, independent, and efficient, though peaceful authority.

This deduction, if properly founded, places the government of the United States in an aspect, new, indeed, but very conspicuous. It is vested with the exalted power of administering judicially the law of nations, which we have formerly seen to be the law of sovereigns.

It has been already observed, that the maxims of this law ought to be known by every citizen of every free state. Reasons, and very sufficient ones, were suggested, why this should be the case. A new reason, striking and illustrious, now appears, why the maxims of this law ought to be particularly known and studied by every citizen of the United States. To every citizen of the United States, this law is not only a rule of conduct, but may be a rule of decision. As judges and as jurors, the administration of this law is, in many important instances, committed to their care.

What a beautiful and magnificent prospect of government is now opened before you! The sluices of discord, devastation, and war are shut: those of harmony, improvement, and happiness are opened! On earth there is peace and good will towards men! On contemplating such a prospect, though only by the eye of a sublime imagination, well might the ardent and elevated Henry address the congenial ardour and elevation of Elizabeth— O most excellent and rare enterprise-Thought rather divine than human!

To us this prospect is realized by happy experience: how thankful ought we to be in enjoying it! how zealous should we be to secure it to ourselves and to our latest posterity! how anxious should we be to extend its example, its influence, and its advantages to the remotest regions of the habitable globe!

CHAPTER X.

OF GOVERNMENT.

WE have already seen, that society may exist without.

civil government: indeed, if we would think and reason with accuracy on the subject, we shall necessarily be led to consider, in our contemplation, the formation of society as preexistent to the formation of those regulations, by which the society mean, that their conduct should be influenced and directed.

It is necessary that this distinction be plainly made, and clearly understood. It has been controverted by some: an inattention to it has produced, in the minds of others, practical inferences, which are both ill founded and dangerous. A change of government has been viewed as a desperate event, as an object of the most terrifick aspect; because it has been thought, that government could not be changed, without tearing up the very foun

dations of the social establishment. It has been supposed, that, in a transition from one government to another, the body making it must be dissolved; that every thing must be reduced to a state of nature; and that the rights and obligations of the society must be lost and discharged.

a

In many parts of the world, indeed, the idea of revolutions in government is, by a mournful and indissoluble association, connected with the idea of wars, and of all the calamities attendant on wars. But joyful experience teaches us, in the United States, to view them in a very different and much more agreeable light-to consider them only as progressive steps in improving the knowledge of government, and increasing the happiness of society and mankind.

It is true, that institutions, which depend on the form or structure of the preceding government, must fall, when that form or structure is taken away. But establishments, whose foundations rest on the society itself, cannot be overturned by any alteration of the government, which the society can make. The acts and compacts which form the political association, are very different from those by which the associated body, when formed, may choose to maintain and regulate itself.

D

But though, without government, society may exist; yet it must be admitted, that, without government, society, in the present state of things, cannot flourish;

a Changes in course of government are looked at as uncouth motions of the celestial bodies, portending judgments or dissolution. Bac. on Gov. 7.