and the most capable on that account to
render the necessary protection to its various members and dependants.
Hence the general establishment of the law of primogeniture in all the
countries of Europe. And for a similar reason, when the necessity
which at first occasioned this general deviation from the feelings of
equal affection to offspring was removed by the establishment of
regular government, and general security, and the spread of commerce,
with the necessity of capital to fit out sons and daughters, had been
generally felt, this custom was silently abrogated at least in the
commercial and middle classes, and a division of the succession,
whether in land or money, into nearly equal parts, very generally took
place.

It may readily be inferred from these observations, that the doctrines
of Montesquieu, as to the moulding of institutions by external
circumstances, and the character of nations, not of the character of
nations by institutions and forms of government, is one of the very
highest importance, not merely to speculative philosophers, but
practical statesmen. In truth, it is the question of questions; the
one thing needful to be understood both by the leaders of thought and
the rulers of men. Unless correct and rational views are entertained
on this subject, internal legislation will be perpetually at fault,
external policy in a false direction. Reform will degenerate into
revolution, conquest into desolation. The greatest calamities, both
social and foreign, recorded in the history of the last half century,
have arisen from a neglect of the maxims of Montesquieu, as to the
indelible influence of race and external circumstances on human
character, and the adoption in their stead of the doctrines of
Voltaire and Rousseau, on the paramount influence of political
institutions and general education on human felicity. Our policy, both
social and foreign, is still mainly founded on the latter basis. If
Montesquieu's principles as to no nation ever arriving at durable
greatness but by institutions in harmony with its spirit and origin,
had been generally adopted, the French Revolution, which originated in
the Anglo and American mania, and the desire to transplant English
institutions into the soil of France, would never have taken place.
Had the same views prevailed in the British Cabinet, the iniquitous
support of the revolt of the South American colonies in 1821 and 1822,
and the insidious encouragement of the