In reviewing actions or doctrines which favor despotism, injustice, false morals or political errors, he should not suffer them to pass without an open and well supported censure. He should show how the authors of such actions might have conducted themselves and succeeded in gaining the celebrity which they sought, by doing good instead of harm to the age and country where they acquired their fame.
The history of human actions, in a political view, has generally been the history of human errors. The writers who have given it to us do not appear to have been sensible of this. How then are young readers to be sensible of it? Their minds are still to be formed; and those who are destined for public life must in a great measure take their bias from the study of history. But history in general, to answer the purpose of sound instruction to the future guides of nations, must be rewritten. For example: among the hundred historians who have treated of what is called the Roman Republic I know not one who has told us this important fact, that Rome never had a Republic. The same may be said of Athens, and of several other turbulent associations of men in former ages. And it is for want of this attention or this knowledge in the writers of their histories, that the republican principle of government is so generally associated, even at this day, with the idea of insurrection, anarchy and the desire of conquest. Whereas it is in fact the want of the republican principle, not the practice of it, which has occasioned all the insurrections, anarchy and desire of conquest, that have disturbed the order of society both in ancient and modern times.
Again: in relating the destruction of Carthage, a measure which the zealous patriots, both before and after, considered so essential to the glory of the Roman state, and which has immortalized so many heroes as the authors and projectors of that destruction, I believe no historian has told us that the disease, decay and downfall of Rome itself were occasioned by that measure and must be dated from that epoch; and that the actions of Regulus and Scipio, the themes of universal applause, were really more injurious to their country than those of Marias and Sylla, the objects (and justly so) of universal detestation.
If these principles had been understood by Polybius and his successors in the brilliant heritage of history and had been properly impressed on the minds of their readers, we should not have heard old Cato’s vociferation delenda est Carthago applied to the American states by an orator of the British parliament, as we did during the war; because every member of that parliament must have understood that the prosperity of these states would be highly advantageous to Britain, from the extensive commercial intercourse that the relative situation of the two countries required. Neither should we see at this day the French and English nations seeking to impoverish and extirpate each other; each of them entertaining the erroneous and absurd opinion that its own prosperity is to be increased by the adversity of its neighbor. We should have learned long ago from the plain dictates of reason, instead of having it beat into us some ages hence by costly experience, that the true dignity of a state is in the happiness of its members; and that their happiness is best promoted by the pursuit of industry at home and the free exchange of their productions abroad.
We should have perceived the real and constant interest that every nation has in the prosperity of its neighbors, instead of their destruction. France would have perceived that the wealth of the English would be beneficial to her, by enabling them to receive and pay for more of her produce. England would have seen the same thing with regard to the French; and such would have been the sentiments of other nations reciprocally and universally.
I know I must be called an extravagant theorist if I insinuate that all these good things would have resulted from having history well written and poetry well conceived. No man will doubt however that such would have been the tendency; nor can we deny that the contrary has resulted, at least in some degree, from the manner in which such writings have been composed. And why should we write at all, if not to benefit mankind? The public mind, as well as the individual mind, receives its propensities; it is equally the creature of habit. Nations are educated, like a single child. They only require a longer time and a greater number of teachers. ↩
Absurdities in speculative opinion are commonly considered as innocent things; and we are told every day that they are not worth refuting. So far as opinions are sure to rest merely in speculation and cannot in any degree become practical, this is doubtless the proper way of treating them. But there are few opinions of this dormant and indifferent kind, especially among those that become general and classical among the nations.
The activity of such, though imperceptible, is extensive. They get wrought into our intellectual existence and govern our modes of acting as well as thinking. The interest of society therefore requires that they should be scrutinized, and that such as are erroneous should be exposed, in order to be rejected; when their place may be supplied by truth and reason, which nourish the mind and accelerate the progress of improvement.
Among the absurd notions which early turned the heads of the teachers of mankind and which are so ridiculous as generally to escape our censure, is
