, but less despotic,
as Montesquieu supposes, than in some other countries, and where there
are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to crush
insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three years I
have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than
in Massachusetts, and a great deal more blood was spilt. In Turkey,
where the sole nod of the despot is death, insurrections are the events
of every day. Compare again the ferocious depredations of their
insurgents, with the order, the moderation and the almost
self-extinguishment of ours. And say, finally, whether peace is best
preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the
people. This last is the most certain, and the most legitimate engine
of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable
them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and
they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of
education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for
the preservation of our liberty. After all, it is my principle that the
will of the majority should prevail. If they approve the proposed
constitution in all its parts, I shall concur in it cheerfully, in
hopes they will amend it, whenever they shall find it works wrong. This
reliance cannot deceive us, as long as we remain virtuous; and I think
we shall be so, as long as agriculture is our principal object, which
will be the case, while there remains vacant lands in any part of
America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in
Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one
another as they do there. I have tired you by this time with
disquisitions which you have already heard repeated by others a
thousand and a thousand times; and therefore, shall only add assurances
of the esteem and attachment with which I have the honor to be, dear
Sir, your affectionate friend and servant.

P. S. The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think it
would be well to provide in our constitutions, that there shall always
be a twelvemonth between the engrossing a bill and passing it; that it
should then be offered to its passage without changing a word; and that
if circumstances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it
should take two-thirds of both Houses, instead of a bare majority.

TO E. CARRINGTON.

PARIS, Dec. 21, 1787.

DEAR SIR,--I h