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Show 118 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. one's will as the rule of right. But is an equal exemption from the restraints of that Jaw liberty, or is it universal anarchy and confusion? It were much nearer the tr·uth to say that all men have an equal right, not to act as "one wills," but to have their wills restrained by law. No greater want is known to man, indeed, than the restraints of law anrl government. llence, all men have an equal right to these, but not to the same restraints, to the same laws and governments. .A.ll have an equal right to that government which is the best for them. Btlt the same government is not the best for all. .A. despotism is best for some ; a limited monarchy is best for others; while, for a third people, a representative republic is the best form of government. This proposition is too plain for controversy. It has received the sanction of all the great teachers of political wisdom, from an Aristotle down to a Montesquieu, and from a Montesquieu down to a Burke. It has become, indeed, one of the commonplaces of political ethics; and, however strange the couj unction, it is often found in the very w001ks which are loudest in proclaiming the universal equality of human ARGUMENTS OF Al\OLITIONISTS. 119 rights. Thus, for example, says Dr. Wayland: "The best form of government for any people ·is lite best that its present moral condition renders practicable. A people may be so entirely surrendered to tl~e influence of passion, and so feebly influenced by moral restra~·nts, that a government wltich relied upon rnoral restraint could not exist for a day. In this case, a subordinate and inferior principle yet remains-tl~e principle of fear, and the only resort is to a government of force or a military despotism. .A.nd such do we see to be the fact." What, then, becomes of the equal and inalienable right of all men to freedom ? llas it vanished with the occasion which gave it birth? But this is not all. "Anarchy," continues Wayland, "always ends in this form of government. [.A. military despotism.] -Mter· this has been established, and habits of subordination have been formed, while the moral restraints are too feeble for self-government, an hereditary go~ernment, which addresses itself to the imagination, and strengthens itself by the inliuenco of domestic connections, may be as good a form as a people can sustain. .A.s they advance in intellectual and moral cultivation, it may ad. vantageously become more and more elective, |