"The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will be best referred to your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominent motive has been, to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.

Anticipation of the Sweet Enjoyment of Living in Retirement under a Free Government and Good Laws.

"Though in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am, nevertheless, too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after fortyfive years of my life, dedicated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.

66

'Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love toward it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation, that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free governmentthe ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

"G. WASHINGTON."

No monument of marble or brass can represent this honest and just man better than his public documents, the federal constitution included. It is true, there were brave and good men united with him in the great work of bringing order out of the chaos of the young confederacy; still without the clear mind, and firm hand, of this great citizen, the result would have been different.

Try then, my dear children, for your part, to be faithful to

those maxims in public life, which he followed and has embodied in his public documents.

I have tried to explain them in their bearing upon the current business, and hope I have not labored in vain.

LETTER XLVI.

The Prince by Macchiavelli. - Parallel between the Farewell Address and the Prince.-Prof. Lieber. — Anti-Macchiavelli by Frederick the Great.

The Barbarians in Italy. Difference between the American and European State-systems. - Legitimacy. - Congress of Vienna.

GENERALLY speaking there are only two kinds of governments, republics* and monarchies. The preceding letters have been devoted to the first class, and the forms and principles adopted in the United States.

To interrupt the monotony of my republican discussions, I embody in this letter an abridgement of the celebrated treatise, entitled "The Prince," written by the great "Secretario Fiorentino," Niccolo Macchiavelli, and dedicated to the young duke Lorenzo de Medici, whom he wished to become the deliverer of Italy from the barbarians, (Spaniards, Germans, and French.) (Mazzini attempts to carry out this plan in our days.) Macchiavelli wrote in the beginning of the sixteenth century; he died in 1527. I have made use of a London translation of 1694, the only one I had access to. This book contains much historical research, and naturally bears,. as General Washington's farewell address does, the signs of the times. The contrast between both

* Prof. Lieber, in his book on Civil Liberty and Self-government, speaks of an instituted self-government, defining it thus: "Instituted self-government is that popular government which consists in a great organism of institutions, or a union of harmonizing systems of laws instinct with self-government. It is of a co-operative or homocratic character, and, in this respect, the opposite to centralism. It is articulated liberty, inter-guarantying, selfevolving, and generic, the political embodiment of self-reliance and mutual acknowledgment of self-rule-the political realization of equality. It is the only self-government which makes it possible to be at once self-government and self-government." This means nothing but republic.

is striking. Macchiavelli's only hope for Italy was a hereditary prince at the head of a consolidated monarchy. Washington fought, worked, and wrote for the overthrow of a hereditary prince, and the establishment of a federal republic under one elective executive. The first treats more of subjects, and their prudent management; the latter of political business, and its good organization, distribution, and performance. The first advises his prince how to conquer a republic by ruining it, and keep down the influential men; the latter maintains that liberty ought to be the main pillar of the Union. The first suggests that the prince must manage the public affairs, so that in all places, times and occasions, the people may have need of his administration and regimen, or that he has his hands in every thing; Washington sees, in the proper organization and distribution of the public business, the best guaranty for the safety of both the people and the government. According to the first, a prince is to have no other thought or study but war; while Washington believes that by our Union we will avoid the necessity of overgrown military establishments. Frederick the Great, who wrote the anti-Macchiavelli, called that nobleman only a gentleman who served in the army.

Macchiavelli thinks a prince may not shun vices and infamy, if he only can preserve thus his dominion; Washington's guide was the maxim: honesty is the best policy.

A prince ought not to keep his parole when it is to his prejudice, so says Macchiavelli; let all engagements be observed in their genuine sense, and justice, and good faith towards all nations, is the maxim of Washington.

Macchiavelli holds that it is necessary for a prince to have all the good qualities in reality, and to play the hypocrite well; Washington believes that honesty, virtue, and morality, are necessary springs of popular government.

Macchiavelli's prince ought to be terrible at home to his subjects, and abroad to his equals; Washington's ideal is a life under the benign influence of good laws under a free government.

A prince, according to Macchiavelli, must recommend himself to the world by great enterprises and valor (of course expensive things), and monopolize knowledge; Washington is for peace, economy, diffusion of knowledge.

Macchiavelli advises his prince never to league with another more powerful than himself; Washington is against all entangling alliances.

The first warns the prince of the snares of woman; the latter of the wiles of party and faction.

But you may better extend yourselves this parallel at pleasure. The sum is, that Macchiavelli advocates rank king-craft, and Washington undefiled democracy. There are a great many secret and open friends of monarchism in the United States, who attribute the present defective working of our political institutions to intrinsic faults of the republican system. A mere superficial comparison of this treatise, which is still the political bible of absolute and constitutional monarchs, with Washington's address, should undeceive them. Of course, if we manage our republics as princely centralizers, hypocrites, and placemen do their states, they will fare like those in Italy and elsewhere.

Peruse, then, "The Prince" carefully. Its author was one of the best statesmen of the remarkable age in which he lived.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRINCE OF MACCHIAVELLI. 1. The several Sorts of Government, and after what Manner they are obtained. "There never was, nor is at this day, any government in the world by which one man has rule and dominion over another, but it is either a commonwealth [republic] or a monarchy." (The state of Maryland, however, began with a universal government.)

2. Of Hereditary Principalities.

"Hereditary states are preserved with less difficulty than the new, because it is sufficient not to transgress the examples of the predecessors, and next to comply and frame themselves to the accidents that occur; so that if the prince be a person of sufficient activity, he will be sure to keep himself on the throne."

3. Of Mixed Principalities.

"Countries that have rebelled, and are conquered the second time, are recovered with more difficulty. Whoever acquires anything, and desires to preserve it, is obliged to have a care of two things: more particularly one is, that the family of the former prince be extinguished; the other, that no new laws or taxes be imposed. But where conquest is made in a country differing in language, customs, and laws, there is the great difficulty that good fortune and great industry are requisite to keep it; and one of the best and most efficacious expedients to do it would be for the usurper to live there himself, as the Grand Turk has done in Greece. Men are either to be flattered and indulged, or utterly destroyed; because for small offences they do usually revenge themselves, but for great ones they can not.

"The conqueror must not omit any pains to gain the inferior nobles in a new province, for they will readily and unanimously fall into one mass with the state that is conquered. He must further take care that they grow not too strong, nor be intrusted with too much authority; and then he can easily with his own forces, and their assistance, keep down the great lords in the vicinity.

"It is no more than natural for princes to desire to extend their dominion, and, when they attempt nothing but what they are able to achieve, they are applauded; in the reverse case they are condemned, and indeed not unworthily.

"Whoever is the occasion of another's advancement, is the cause of his own diminution."

4. Consummation.

"An empire like the Turkish, which is governed by the prince and his officers [servants], is harder to be subdued than one with a nobility; but, when once conquered, more easy to be kept."

5. How Subdued Principalities are to be governed.

"A commonwealth or republic is to be ruined, in order to keep it as a conquered province; for people, upon all occasions, will endeavor to recover their old privileges." [Hindostan.]

6. Of Principalities acquired by one's own proper Conduct and Arms. "That conqueror who has committed least to fortune, has continued the longest."

7. Of New Principalities.

Conquerors or innovators who stand upon their own feet and arms, succeed better than those who make more use of their rhetoric."

8. Of Wicked Usurpers.

"Whoever usurps the government of any state, is to execute and put in practice at once all the cruelties which he thinks material, that he may have no occasion to renew them often; but that by discontinuance he may mollify the people, and by his good deeds bring them over to his side. Such deeds should be distilled by drops, that the relish may be the greater.

"A prince is so to behave himself toward his subjects, that neither good nor bad fortune should be able to alter him; for, being once assaulted with adversity, you have no time to do mischief; and the good which you do, does you no good, being looked upon as forced, and so no thanks are due for it."

9. Of Civil Principalities.

'In all cities [states], the meaner and the better sort of citizens are of different humors; and hence it follows that the common people are not willing to be commanded and oppressed by the great ones, and the great ones [aristocrats] are not satisfied without it.

"He who arrives at the sovereignty by the assistance of the aristocrats, preserves it with more difficulty than he who is advanced by the people; because he has about him many of his old associates, who, thinking themselves