The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• To His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland.
• Introduction.
• Postscript.
• Political Discourses Upon Sallust.
• Discourse I.: Of Faction and Parties.
• Sect. I.: How Easily the People Are Led Into Faction, and Kept In It, By Their Own Heat and Prejudices, and the Arts of Their Leaders; How Hard They Are to Be Cured; and With What Partiality and Injustice Each Side Treats the Other.
• Sect. II.: How Apt Parties Are to Err In the Choice of Their Leaders. How Little They Regard Truth and Morality, When In Competition With Party. the Terrible Consequences of All This; Worthy Men Decried and Persecuted; Worthless and Wicked Men Popular and
• Sect. III.: Party Infers Public Weakness: Its Devilish Spirit, and Sirange Blindness: What Public Ruin It Threatens: the People Rarely Interested In It; Yet How Eager and Obstinate In It, and Bewitched By It.
• Discourse II.: Of Patriots and Parricides.
• Sect. I.: How Virtue and Vice, Public Services, and Public Crimes, May Be Said to Bring Their Own Rewards.
• Sect. II.: A Suffering Patriot More Happy Than a Successful Parricide: Public Oppressors Always Unhappy.
• Sect. III.: Cautions Against the Arts and Encroachments of Ambition. the Character of a Patriot, and That of a Parricide. How Much It Is the Duty, How Much the Interest, of All Governors to Be Patriots.
• Sect. IV.: How Apt the World Is to Be Deceived With Glare and Outside, to Admire Prosperous Iniquity, and to Slight Merit In Disgrace. Public Spirit the Duty of All Men. the Evils and Folly Attending the Want of It.
• Sect. V.: Considerations Upon Two Distinguished Romans, Cato and Cæsar; One In the Interest of His Country, the Other In His Own Interest: With the Fate and Issue of Cæsar’s Ambition, to Himself and His Race.
• Discourse III.: Of the Resignation of Sylla.
• Sect. I.: His Policy In Resigning; His Motives and Encouragement to Resign.
• Sect. II.: What Measures, and Precautions, He Had Taken For His Security, After His Resignation.
• Discourse IV.: Of the Pride and Ill Conduct of the Patricians, After the Expulsion of Kings.
• Sect. I.: The Roman Commonwealth Unequally Balanced. the Kingly Power, Upon the Expulsion of Tarquin, Engrossed, and Imperiously Exercised, By the Patricians. the Ill Policy of This to Themselves, the Injustice of It to the Plebeians.
• Sect. II.: The Plebeians, Long Oppressed, Obtain a Remedy By Force; But a Remedy Dangerous to the State.
• Discourse V.: Of the Institution and Power of the Popular Tribunes.
• Sect. I.: The Blind Confidence of the People In the Tribunes: the Ambition, and Violent Attempts, of Those Popular Leaders.
• Sect. II.: Reflections On the Plausible Professions, and Dangerous Conduct, of the Gracchi. Public Reformations, How Cautiously to Be Attempted.
• Sect. III.: The Boundless Power Assumed By the Tribunes: With What Boldness and Iniquity They Exercise It. the People Still Their Dupes.
• Discourse VI.: Of Public Corruption; Particularly That of the Romans.
• Sect. I.: The Interest of Virtue, and of the Public, Every Man’s Interest.
• Sect. II.: The Fatal Tendency of Public Corruption. the Public Sometimes Served By Encouraging Private Corruption. Other Means of Corruption, Beside That of Money. Corruption Sometimes Practised By Such Who Rail At It; In Some Instances, By Good Men, Who
• Sect. III.: Some Corruptions In the State to Be Borne, Rather Than Removed By the Introduction of Greater.
• Sect. IV.: How Hard to Prevent Corruption, Where the Means of Corruption Are Found.
• Sect. V.: Venal Men, With What Ill Grace They Complain of Any Ill Conduct, Or Corruption, In Him Who Bought Them: People Once Corrupted, How Abandoned to All Corruption.
• Sect. VI.: Amongst a Corrupt People, the Most Debauched and Desperate Leaders Are the Most Popular.
• Sect. VII.: When the People Are Thoroughly Corrupt, All True Sense of Liberty Is Lost. Outrage and Debauchery Then Pass For Liberty, Defiance of Law For Public Spirit, and Incendiaries For Patriots.
• Sect. VIII.: The Swift Progress of Corruption In the Roman Republic. Its Final Triumph In the Dissolution of the State.
• Discourse VII.: Of the Corruption In the Roman Seats of Justice, and the Oppression In the Provinces.
• Sect. I.: Of the Extreme Difficulty In Procuring Justice At Rome, Against Any Considerable Criminal.
• Sect. II.: The Wonderful Guilt and Enormities of Verres In Sicily, Confidently Committed, From Assurance of Impunity. Cicero’ S Character of the Judges: Their Bold and Constant Venality.
• Sect. III.: The Virtue of the Old Romans, In the Administration of Justice, and Government of Provinces. Their Posterity, and Successors, How Unlike Them. the Wise and Righteous Administration of Cicero, With That of the Provincial Governors In China
• Discourse VIII.: Of Civil Wars.
• Sect. I.: Who the First Authors of Civil War: What Inslames It Most, and Why It Is So Hard to Be Checked.
• Sect. II.: The Chief Power In a Civil War, Vested In the Generals, Yet Little Reverenced By the Soldiers. Both Soldiers and People Grow Hardened and Ungovernable.
• Sect. III.: The Shocking Corruption, and Dissolute Manners, Produced By Civil War; With the Dreadful Barbarities and Devastations Attending It.
• Sect. IV.: The Soldiery, In a Civil War, Only Consider Themselves: What Low Instruments and Causes Serve to Begin and Continue It.
• Sect. V.: How Hard to Put an End to a Civil War. the Tendency of One, to Produce More. How It Sharpens the Spirits of Men, Shocks the Civil Constitution, and Produces Tyranny.
• Sect. VI.: The Evils, and Sudden Changes, Brought By Civil War Upon Particular Families, and Upon a Country In General; With the Fierce Discontents, and Animosities, and Ill Morals, Which It Entails.
• Sect. VII.: A View of the Affecting Horrors, and Calamities, Produced By Civil War; Taken From the History of Greece.
• Discourse IX.: To His Grace Archibald, Duke of Argyll. of the Mutability of Government.
• Sect. I.: Why Free Governments Are More Changeable In Their Frame, Than Such As Are Single and Arbitrary.
• Sect. II.: The Danger to Free Government From Popular Maxims, and Popular Men; With the Advantages It Furnishes Against Itself.
• Sect. III.: The Signal Power of Enthusiasm, and Pious Imposture, In Settling, Changing, Or Perpetuating Government.
• Sect. IV.: The Surprising, Despotic, But Pacific Government, Established By the Jesuits, By the Force of Imposture, In Paraguay.
• Sect. V.: The Inevitable Danger of Trusting Ecclesiastical Persons With Any Worldly Power, Or Any Share In Government.
• Sect. VI.: The Profession of the Missionaries Abroad; How Notoriously Insincere, and Contradictory to Their Tenets and Practices At Home.
• Sect. VII.: The Duration of Tyrannical Single Governments, and the Changeable Nature of Such As Are Popular and Free, Further Considered and Illustrated.
• Sect. VIII.: An Inquiry, Which Is the Most Equal and Perfect Government: Our Own Proved to Be So.
• Postscript.
• The Conspiracy of Cataline
• To His Grace Evelyn, Duke of Kingston.
• The First Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Spoken In the Senate.
• The Second Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Addressed to the People.
• The Third Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Addressed to the People.
• The Fourth Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Spoken In the Senate.
• The War Against Jugurtha.
• To the Right Honourable the Earl of Cholmondeley.
• The War Against Jugurtha.
• The Speech of M. Æmilius Lepidus, the Consul, Against Sylla.
• The Speech of L. Philippus Against Lepidus.
• Pompey ’s Letter to the Senate.
• The Oration of Licinius, the Tribune: Addressed to the People.
• The Letter Which Mithridates, King of Pontus, Sent to Arsaces, King of Parthia.
• The First Epistle of Sallust to Caius Julius CÆsar: Concerning the Regulation of the Commonwealth.
• The Second Epistle of Sallust to Caius Julius CÆsar: Concerning the Regulation of the Commonwealth.

SECT. III.

Some Corruptions in the State to be borne, rather than removed by the Introduction of greater.

THE Transactions of this World, especially Transactions of State, are more Problematical than is generally thought or considered; and the truest Virtue may, at some Conjunctures, be exerted preposterously. No Man ever questioned that of Cato; his Virtue is become Proverbial. Yet, by carrying it further than the Times would bear, he sometimes hurt what he loved beyond his Life, even Liberty, and his Country. By this means, at one time, he lost to the Public the Body of the Roman Knights; a very powerful Body, and, till then, well disposed to assist against the exorbitant Power of Pompey and Cæsar. This was a great Consideration, superior to all others. But Cato gave is up, rather than allow them some Mitigation in a Bargain, for a Part of the Public Revenue. I forget whether he gained this small Point; sure I am, that, by insisting upon it, he lost a much greater. That great Body, thus piqued, fell instantly into the Arms of the first Triumvirate, who knew how to humour and prize them. So truly might Cicero say of Cato—optimo animo utens & summa fide, nocet interdum Reipub. dicit enim tanquam in πολιτείᾳ Platonis sententiam.

Cato hated all Corruption, Public and Private, and could not bear to see the Commonwealth wronged by the Farmers of her Revenue; nor the Roman Knights, who were such, grow rich at her Expence, and commit notorious Abuse and Oppressions, as they often did, as well as often refuse to comply with the Terms of their own Bargain. It was, in truth, melancholy and affecting, to consider how mercilesly these public Farmers squeezed and devoured the People in the Provinces, and to what cruel Extremities they drove them, even to sell their Children to satisfy the Tax-gatherers. Lucullus therefore deserved immortal Praise, for causing these poor People to be redressed; the more for the powerful Enmity which he incurred for such Mercy and Beneficence. It incensed the whole Equestrian Order, who thenceforward laboured his Downfal. For, Men who gain by Injustice, always think it unjust to be restrained from it. Such Injustice and Baseness in the public Farmers provoked the honest Mind of Cato. But he carried his Honesty further than the Times would bear, and, with an upright Design to assist the State, hastened its Fall.

Just so acted Appius the Censor. He, indeed, exercised that high Office with strict and severe Justice. But, whilst he attended to Justice only, he overlooked Reasons of State, which are often just, though they quadrate not with the simple and exact Ideas of Justice. For, by degrading many Senators of Distinction, though it was what in Strictness they deserved, he notably weakened the Republican Party; that is to say, his own Party, for which he was sincerely zealous; and consequently strengthened that of Cæsar, which he equally hated and opposed. Appius set cordially about the Cure of Corruption; and, by doing it, contributed to bring in universal Corruption, even the Domination of Cæsar, and Perdition to the Commonwealth.

Sylla, to secure himself from future Vengeance, for his present Cruelties and Oppression, made a Law, which excluded from all public Offices, the Children of all such Romans as he had proscribed. What was this but adding one Wickedness to another, and perpetuating his Cruelty? Could there be more apparent Justice, than to abolish that unrighteous and barbarous Law? Yet, when Sylla was dead, the Repeal of it was opposed by such as hated Sylla and his Power, even by the best and wisest Men in Rome; and for wise and just Reasons. For, had the Children of the Proscribed been restored to a Capacity for Employments, they might have been led, by their Resentment, to have cancelled all other Laws, all the useful Laws passed under Sylla, and thence brought great Disorder into the State.

The Abuse of Liberty, by turning it into Licentiousness, is Corruption, such Corruption as threatens, because it often brings, public Ruin; and therefore it is wise and just to cure it, in any Way consistent with Liberty. But it would be a much greater Corruption, to cure popular Licence by establishing Tyranny; that is, by giving absolute Power to one Man to prevent the Abuse of Liberty in many.

Whatever weakens the Power of a State, is Corruption, however righteous and plausible it may appear: Whatever preserves or increases its internal Strength, cannot be Corruption, though it may appear harsh and immoral. It is just to cut off a Limb to save the whole Body; as it would be unjust to expose the Body, to perish for the Sake of saving the Limb. When Spurius Mælius, who attempted to make himself Tyrant of Rome, could not be brought to Justice in the ordinary Way, whilst he was protected by the Multitude, whom he had bought and cheated by deceitful Acts of Liberality; it was necessary, and therefore just, to take away his Life by an extraordinary Power. Yet it was also just, because necessary, to forbear all Inquiry after his Adherents; because they were supposed to be very many; and it was judged rash, to make very many Citizens desperate.

The Rule and Art is, to make the Remedy strong enough for the Disease, without being too strong for the Patient. Cæsar and Crassus were engaged in the Conspiracy of Catiline, and it was just to have arraigned them for it; but it was not expedient, because not safe; for then the Criminals, many and powerful as they were, might have been too strong for the Prosecutors and the State. It was therefore just to spare them, however guilty. Yet it would have sounded well Abroad, and been a notable Topic for railing at Cicero, and charging him with Partiality and Corruption, in having passed by, or rather protected, the most Mighty of all the Traitors, and therefore the most Dangerous. But Cicero, who aimed only at saving his Country, was constrained to connive at some who were leagued to destroy it.

Caius Piso was one of the worst Men in Rome, a powerful and a desperate Incendiary, an Accomplice of Catiline, ready for all public Mischief, and more worthy of a Dungeon than Preferment; yet, was sent into Spain with supreme Command. This must surely seem very wrong and unjustifiable. There were, however, many worthy Citizens, and even Patriots, who approved it, and were pleased with it, for a powerful political Reason; namely, that he was a Man, who, from his Figure, Spirit, and Character, might serve to balance and check the overgrown Power of Pompey, become now altogether formidable.

The purchasing Votes at Rome, for public Employments, was justly restrained by strong and severe Laws; as what had a direct Tendency to ruin any State. Yet that Practice, wicked in most Circumstances, became necessary in some, and countenanced by the most virtuous Romans. Thus, when Cæsar, who had already given so many Proofs of a Genius utterly lawless and aspiring, was suing for the Consulship by Money, and all Methods of Corruption, such as wished well to the Public, and opposed him, thought it no Corruption to oppose him by the like Means, and, by a Contribution of Money, to assist Bibulus his Competitor. Even Cato owned, that bribing the Centuries against him conduced to the Security and Interest of the Commonwealth.

I am far from making, or intending by what I have said, any Apology for Corruption. I hate Corruption as much as I love what it tends to destroy, Liberty, Peace, and Justice. I mean only to shew, that what sounds like Corruption, may not be Corruption; and that it is not so much the Act, as the Characters and Designs of Men, that constitute it. I have owned every such Act to be Corruption in him to whom it is applied; but contend, that it may be otherwise in him who honestly and usefully applies it.

It was Corruption in Catiline, to bribe Men to promote his Interest against the Interest of the State: But it was public Spirit in Cicero, to gain Men by Money to serve the State against the treasonable Designs of Catiline.