The Online Library of Liberty

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• 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. I.

Why Free Governments are more changeable in their Frame, than such as are Single and Arbitrary.

NOTHING which depends upon the changeable Humours and Passions of Men, can be permanent. No Species of Government can, therefore, be so. Time and Accidents, as they alter the human Face and Frame, so do they that of human Society.

Nothing is perfect at once: Government never is so, nor can be; and has been sometimes destroyed by Attempts to make it so. Human Society, like human Life, is liable to Decay; and the latter, as well as the former, is supported by Expedients. Occasional Laws are found as necessary as occasional Medicines; and both Medicines and Laws, though they sometimes help and save, do likewise sometimes hurt and destroy: Nor can the ablest Physicians and Legislators be certain, that their best Rules will always succeed, and their best Directions be salubrious, or even safe; since the best may be perverted, and then become the worst. The best Remedies, applied unseasonably, or in too great Quantities, may destroy Life: The most wholsome Laws may be perverted into Poison to a State. Laws and Physic, thus abused, are worse than none; because they do Mischief by Authority; and warrant, as well as hasten, the Dissolution of human Life, and civil Society.

In every State and Community, there will, I doubt, be found more Vicious than Virtuous, more Weak than Wise. The Cunning will be for ever deceiving the Simple; the Ambitious will be for ever finding Fools, and for ever leading them. No State or Nation was ever without such Instruments, no more than without proper Materials for such Instruments to work on; the Foolish and the Credulous always blindly following the Ambitious and the Cunning. Wherever there are Multitudes, there will be Seducers; and whilst the Many are always ready to be led, they will never want Leaders. Very mean Implements often serve the Purpose: For there are none so low, but they will see, or think they see, many still lower; and from this Superiority, real or sansied, will try to govern the rest. Indeed, many, of all Ranks, are governed by such as surpass them, not in Capacity, but only in Assurance and Deceit. I doubt not but Beggars, as much upon a Level as they seem, have such Degrees and Subordination amongst them; the Imperious, and the Meek; the Directors, and the Directed; the Credulous, and the Imposing. It is the Characteristic of Society, it is the Nature of Man, to guide, and to follow; to dictate, and to obey; to deceive, and to be deceived.

What State is likely to be quiet, where there are such constant Causes of Disquiet? or to be lasting, where there are so many Materials, so many Authors and Causes of Change? No Government is without such; and the freest Governments, which are consequently the best, abound with them more than the worst. Liberty, like many other valuable Things, carries with it the Seeds of Self-destruction: It is ever liable to be turned into Licentiousness; and thence ever in Peril. Many will abuse it, because they may: Some will encourage that Abuse, on purpose to destroy it. It protects even those who attack and undermine it; and often secures them from Punishment for the worst of all Crimes. As it subsists by certain fixt Laws, whoever can evade those Laws, may overthrow it: And where Liberty abounds most, Laws are most easily evaded.

In a free State, a Man may be a notorious Criminal against Law, yet not punishable by Law; which requires there such Evidence for Guilt, as cannot well affect the Innocent; and, therefore, the Guilty, if they be wary, often escape all Punishment. Here is Encouragement given by a free Government against itself, and often taken! It is like a Distemper arising from too much Health: No Wonder that a Disease, so continually and plentifully fed, proves mortal in time; often in a short Time.

In arbitrary Countries, a Man may be innocent, yet punished legally; because the same absolute Will which creates the Guilt, finds the Evidence. Here is an Opportunity and Temptation presented to an absolute Ruler, and too generally accepted by him, to destroy his best Subjects! It is small Surprize, that, under such a Government, one so threatening to Virtue, there are found but few great Men; or that such Men are unprosperous and short-lived.

In arbitrary Countries, it is a Maxim, ‘That it is better to destroy many innocent Persons, than that One guilty should escape:’ A Maxim which, when generally pursued, threatens swift Destruction to All: And it sometimes happens, that Numbers are sacrificed to the furious Suspicion of unbounded Power, where there was no real Guilt to provoke it. Whoever a Tyrant fears, is always guilty. A King of Siam, having lost his Daughter, and fansying that she was poisoned, put most of his Court, great and small, to Death, chiefly by the most exquisite Torture; because it appeared probable to him, that some of them had given her Poison. Thus that savage Prince massacred above Two thousand Persons, mostly of principal Rank; the great Mandarins, their Wives and Children, all first scorched with Fire, and mangled with Knives, before they were admitted to his last Favour of being thrown to the Elephants, to be by them torn or crushed to Pieces, or buried, still alive, with their Heads above-ground.

By such savage Policy, Expedients are sought for the present Safety and Gratification of such a Prince; who, having, for his chief Drift in reigning, the Ease and Security of his Person, makes it his Study and Pleasure, to cut off and destroy whoever has, or he apprehends may, hurt him, or even thwart or ruffle him. When he thinks, that, by Blood, he can establish his Throne, he will not spare to shed it; nor will he make any Difference between Suspicion and Proof; much less prolong his Fears and Danger by Forms and Examination. An Attempt upon his Person is punished not only by the Execution of the Conspirators, but often by the Massacre of their whole Family and Kindred, and the Extinction of their Race. The Vizir Kuproli, to punish the turbulent Janizaries, is thought to have destroyed above Forty thousand of that important Militia, by different Slaughters, and at different times; and thus weakened the Monarchy, for the Safety of the Monarch. The strange bloody Justice of an Indian Prince, mentioned by Monsieur D’estoille, as what he saw, is amazing! ‘That, for Two or Three Robberies, he had caused an Hundred thousand Men to be gibbetted upon Trees.’ So that this Traveller, for many Days together, passed through Regions peopled with the Dead. So readily and wantonly can a Prince, thus arbitrary, execute whoever is obnoxious to him, or suspected by him, without Form or Delay.

Against a Power thus violent, and armed with such Force and Expedients to secure itself, no Number of Persons will easily venture into a Conspiracy, or no such Conspiracy is likely to remain long undiscovered. Though One particular Hand, sufficiently desperate, may destroy the Tyrant, yet it cannot with him destroy the Tyranny. He is seldom without a Successor at Hand; one who, perhaps, employed the Assassin, and reaps the Benefit of the Assassination; though he seem not to like it, and often cuts off the Author of it. Perhaps no further Change is thought of; no Change of the Government, but only of the Governor: Few Countries will bear any other Change; nor is the Trial like to be made. What Number of able and unarmed Men are to be found, under a despotic Prince, willing to trust one another; and to meet, in order to concert a new Frame of Government, and to abolish the present? They are almost sure of being first destroyed themselves: Or, were such a Scheme concerted ever so wisely, it is hardly possible to be executed. Such Countries are hardly to be supposed to be without mercenary Armies, chiefly Strangers; and the Changes made by such Armies are always personal, from one Prince to another. It is not their Turn or Interest to settle a free State, where the Laws must dictate to the Sword. When they find, that they can make and unmake Princes, (a Lesson which they quickly learn) they will as soon learn another Lesson, even to make and unmake Laws.

Besides, no free State can be established without proper Materials; I mean a People disposed to receive and submit to it. The Wisdom of Man could not convert the Turkish Monarchy into a free State: A Parliament there would appear a Monster: Even the People, if they could have it, would not suffer it. The same People, who can bear any Act of Power done by the Sultan, or in his Name, and have no Notion of opposing any such Act, be it ever so outrageous, would not quietly bear any Act of Power, however just and necessary, from any Number of themselves; nor see, with Patience, some of their Neighbours, no better than themselves, and lately no higher, making Laws, and controuling all Things. Indeed no public Change whatsoever can be expected in that Empire, or any other like it, but by the Army; and what, other than a military Government, is to be hoped there from military Men? It is true, they have often destroyed Tyrants; but I do not remember, that they have ever destroyed Tyranny. They have frequently sacrificed Princes, for not being Tyrants, and for not devoting the State, and all in it, to the Will and Lust of the Army. They deposed Nero; but they likewise murdered Galba.

It seems, to me, impossible, for a great Monarchy, extending over many Nations, and ruling a great Empire by great Armies, to fall into a Commonwealth: But I conceive it very possible, for it to break piecemeal into several Governments; some of them, perhaps, Commonwealths. The Weakness of the Head, or a great Revolution, may occasion a Separation of the Members; and each, setting up for itself, may produce several separate Principalities, as well as some Commonwealths. The large inland Provinces will probably preserve the same Form of Government, single and military. The great maritime and trading Cities will naturally aim at governing themselves, upon the Principles of Liberty and Commerce; and be, perhaps, encouraged and supported in their free Government by the neighbouring Princes; who, if they cannot master it themselves, will defend it against one another.

To this Principle some free States, even in Europe, owe their Preservation and Independency; Geneva, the Hans Towns in Germany, and even the High and Mighty States of Holland. I say this of the States, without any Design to derogate from their own genuine and eternal Merit and Firmness, in maintaining their Liberties against that merciless and perjured Tyrant, Philip II. of Spain.