Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 028.djvu/12

We think that in reviewing all former administrations, the especial fault will he found this:—whatever power they have possessed, it has not been of that nature which secures the ends of right government; they have possessed the power to corrupt, but not to amend. Before we unfold this proposition, we shall briefly state what seem the obvious ends of right government. First, to preserve what is good in a state; secondly, to rectify what is evil.

Now we hold the second duty of government—(to rectify what is evil)—to be more arduous, and more incumbent on it, than the first; for the value of that which is good is felt by all people, and clung to with a strength which nobody thinks of combating. No man proposes to abolish for ever the law of habeas corpus; and there would be very little danger in the arguments of any mal-schemer who should declare the mischiefs of a law against housebreaking. Public opinion alone, then, might suffice to preserve what is good, but it is far from having an equal power to rectify what is evil; for it proverbially happens that nothing is so bad in a state but what some persons have an interest in its continuance: and with an equal infelicity it happens, that while selfishness keeps vigilant the designing few, custom dulls the opposi tion of the indolent though injured many; for men bear easily such evils as have been borne long, and borne in companionship. Thus, while those deeply interested in abuses make vehement enemies, those equally interested in their removal make but languid friends. An administration, therefore, finds it difficult and perilous to attempt a reform; and it is well known that those administrations have lasted the longest which have been the most inflexible in opposing all amendment. Hence the end of government, so far from being promoted, has been perverted, and it has existed by countenancing the very abuses which it is obviously created to remove, We do not think it will be denied, that, whatever be the causes of this perversion of (illegible text) of govern ment, they cannot be sufficiently depre(illegible text) causes, we think, a principal one is this:—(illegible text) hitherto been composed of one faction or the other—the Whigs or the Tories,—and the ministers have been necessitated to govern by the tenets of the predominant faction, rather than to lean for support upon the people.

Let us pause to examine. In the first place, we do not think that there