g the evil. For
if the co-ordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of
the co-ordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively.
Of this, a cabal in the Senate of the United States has furnished many
proofs. Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy;
because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the
legislation, to protect themselves. From fifteen to twenty legislatures
of our own, in action for thirty years past, have proved that no fears
of an equalization of property are to be apprehended from them. I think
the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to
leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the _aristoi_
from the _pseudo-aristoi_, of the wheat from the chaff. In general,
they will elect the really good and wise. In some instances, wealth may
corrupt, and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger
the society.

It is probable that our difference of opinion may, in some measure, be
produced by a difference of character in those among whom we live. From
what I have seen of Massachusetts and Connecticut myself, and still
more from what I have heard, and the character given of the former by
yourself, (Vol. I, page 111,) who know them so much better, there seems
to be in those two States a traditionary reverence for certain families,
which has rendered the offices of government nearly hereditary in those
families. I presume that from an early period of your history, members
of these families happening to possess virtue and talents, have honestly
exercised them for the good of the people, and by their services have
endeared their names to them. In coupling Connecticut with you, I mean
it politically only, not morally. For having made the Bible the common
law of their land, they seem to have modeled their morality on the story
of Jacob and Laban. But although this hereditary succession to office
with you may, in some degree, be founded in real family merit, yet in a
much higher degree, it has proceeded from your strict alliance of Church
and State. These families are canonized in the eyes of the people on the
common principle, 'You tickle me, and I will tickle you.' In Virginia,
we have nothing of this. Our clergy, before the revolution, having been
secured against rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the
trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth, there were
great accumul