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strict legal representation of all its interests is far more necessary
to a worldly than to a simple people, since responsibility, which is the
essence of a free government, is more likely to keep the agents of a
nation near to its own standard of virtue than any other means. The
common opinion that a Republic cannot exist without an extraordinary
degree of virtue in its citizens, is so flattering to our own actual
condition, that we seldom take the trouble to inquire into its truth;
but, to us, it seems quite apparent that the effect is here mistaken for
the cause. It is said, as the people are virtually masters in a
Republic, that the people ought to be virtuous to rule well. So far as
this proposition is confined to degrees, it is just as true of a
Republic as of any other form of government. But kings do rule, and
surely all have not been virtuous; and that aristocracies have ruled
with the very minimum of that quality, the subject of our tale
sufficiently shows. That, other things being equal, the citizens of a
Republic will have a higher standard of private virtue than the subjects
of any other form of government, is true as an effect, we can readily
believe; for responsibility to public opinion existing in all the
branches of its administration, that conventional morality which
characterizes the common sentiment, will be left to act on the mass, and
will not be perverted into a terrible engine of corruption, as is the
case when factitious institutions give a false direction to its
influence.
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