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merous population, and a more tranquil state of society than in great empires.
When tyranny is established in the bosom of a small nation, it is more galling than elsewhere, because as it acts within a narrow circle, every point of that circle is subject to its direct influence. It supplies the place of those great designs which it cannot entertain, by a violent or an exasperating interference in a multitude of minute details; and it leaves the political world to which it properly belongs, to meddle with the arrangements of domestic life. Tastes as well as actions are to be regulated at its pleasure; and the families of the citizens as well as the affairs of the state are to be governed by its decisions. This invasion of rights occurs, however, but seldom, and freedom is in truth the natural state of small communities. The temptations which the government offers to ambition are too weak, and the resources of private individuals are too slender, for the sovereign power easily to fall within the grasp of a single citizen: and should such an event have occurred, the subjects of the state can without difficulty overthrow the tyrant and his oppression by a simultaneous effort.
Small nations have therefore ever been the cradles of political liberty: and the fact that many of them have lost their immunities by extending their dominion, shows that the freedom they enjoyed was more a consequence of their inferior size than of the character of the people.
The history of the world affords no instance of a great nation retaining the form of a republican government for a long series of years,[1] and this had led to the conclusion that such a state of things is impracticable. For my own part, I cannot but censure the imprudence of attempting to limit the possible, and to judge the future, on the part of a being who is hourly deceived by the most palpable realities of life, and who is constantly taken by surprise in the circumstances with which he is most familiar. But it may be advanced with confidence that the existence of a great republic will always be exposed to far greater perils than that of a small one.
All the passions which are most fatal to republican institutions spread with an increasing territory, while the virtues which main-
- ↑ I do not speak of a confederation of small republics but of a great consolidated republic.
