From the essay on “The Constitution of Man.”

THE PRINCIPLE which regulates national responsibility is that the precise combination of faculties which leads to the national transgression carries in its train the punishment. Nations are under the moral and intellectual law as well as individuals. A carter who half starves his horse, and unmercifully beats it, to supply, by the stimulus of pain, the vigor that nature intended to flow from abundance of food, may be supposed to practice this barbarity with impunity in this world, if he evade the eye of Mr. Martin, and that of the police; but this is not the case. The hand of Providence reaches him by a direct punishment: he fails in his object, for blows cannot supply the vigor which, by the constitution of the horse, flows only from sufficiency of wholesome food. In his conduct he manifests an excessive combativeness and destructiveness, with deficient benevolence, veneration, justice, and intellect, and he cannot reverse this character by merely averting his eyes and his hand from the horse. He carries these dispositions into the bosom of his family, and into the company of his associates, and a variety of evil consequences ensue. The delights that spring from active moral sentiments and intellectual powers are necessarily unknown to him; and the difference between these pleasures, and the sensations attendant on his moral and intellectual condition, are as great as between the external splendor of a king and the naked poverty of a beggar. It is true that he has never felt the enjoyment, and does not know the extent of his loss; but still the difference exists; we see it, and know that, as a direct consequence of this state of mind, he is excluded from a very great and exalted pleasure. Further, his active animal faculties rouse the combativeness, destructiveness, self-esteem, secretiveness, and cautiousness, of his wife, children, and associates, against him, and they inflict on him animal punishment. He, no doubt, goes on to eat, drink, blaspheme, and abuse his horse, day after day, apparently as if Providence approved of his conduct; but he neither feels, nor can any one who attends to his condition believe him to feel, happy; he is uneasy, discontented, and disliked,—all which sensations are his punishment, and it is fairly owing to his own grossness and ignorance that he does not connect it with his offense. Let us apply these remarks to nations. England, for instance, under the impulses of an excessively strong acquisitiveness, self-esteem, and destructiveness, for a long time protected the slave trade. Now, according to the law which I am explaining, during the periods of greatest sin in this respect, the same combination of faculties ought to be found working most vigorously in her other institutions, and producing punishment for that offense. There ought to be found in these periods a general spirit of domineering and rapacity in her public men, rendering them little mindful of the welfare of the people; injustice and harshness in her taxations and public laws; and a spirit of aggression and hostility towards other nations, provoking retaliation of her insults. And, accordingly, I have been informed, as a matter of fact, that, while these measures of injustice were publicly patronized by the government, its servants vied with each other in injustice towards it, and that its subjects dedicated their talents and enterprise towards corrupting its officers, and cheating it of its due. Every trader who was liable to excise or custom duties, evaded the one-half of them, and felt no disgrace in doing so. A gentleman, who was subject to the excise laws fifty years ago, described to me the condition of his trade at that time. The excise officers, he said, regarded it as an understood matter, that at least one-half of the goods manufactured were to be smuggled without being charged with duty; but then, said he, “they made us pay a moral and pecuniary penalty that was at once galling and debasing. We were required to ask them to our table at all meals, and place them at the head of it in our holiday parties; when they fell into debt we were obliged to help them out of it; when they moved from one house to another, our servants and carts were in requisition to perform this office; and, by way of keeping up discipline upon us, and also to make a show of duty, they chose every now and then to step in and detect us in a fraud, and get us fined; if we submitted quietly they told us that they would make us amends by winking at another fraud; and generally did so; but if our indignation rendered passive obedience impossible, and we spoke our mind of their character and conduct, they enforced the law on us, while they relaxed it on our neighbors; and these being rivals in trade, undersold us in the market, carried away our customers, and ruined our business. Nor did the bondage end here. We could not smuggle without the aid of our servants; and as they could, on occasion of any offense given to themselves, carry information to the headquarters of excise, we were slaves to them also, and were obliged tamely to submit to a degree of drunkenness and insolence that appears to me now perfectly intolerable. Further, this evasion and oppression did us no good; for all the trade were alike, and we just sold our goods so much cheaper the more duty we evaded; so that our individual success did not depend upon superior skill and superior morality, in making an excellent article at a moderate price, but upon superior capacity for fraud, meanness, sycophancy, and every possible baseness. Our lives were anything but enviable. Conscience, although greatly blunted by practices that were universal, and viewed as inevitable, still whispered that they were wrong; our sentiments of self-respect very frequently revolted at the insults to which we were exposed, and there was a constant feeling of insecurity from the great extent to which we were dependent upon wretches whom we internally despised. When the government took a higher tone, and more principle and greater strictness in the collection of the duties were enforced, we thought ourselves ruined; but the reverse has been the case. The duties, no doubt, are now excessively burdensome from their amount; but that is their least evil. If it were possible to collect them from every trader with perfect equality, our independence would be complete, and our competition would be confined to superiority in morality and skill. Matters are much nearer this point now than they were fifty years ago; but still they would admit of considerable improvement.” The same individual mentioned that, in his youth, now seventy years ago, the civil liberty of the people of Scotland was held by a weak tenure. He knew instances of soldiers being sent in times of war to the farmhouses to carry off, by force, young men for the army; and as this was against the law, they were accused of some imaginary offense, such as a trespass, or an assault, which was proved by false witnesses, and the magistrate, perfectly aware of the farce and its object, threatened the victim with transportation to the colonies as a felon if he would not enlist; which he, of course, unprotected and overwhelmed by power and injustice, was compelled to consent to.

  If the same minute representation were given of other departments of private life, during the time of the greatest immoralities on the part of the government, we would find that this paltering with conscience and character in the national proceedings, tended to keep down the morality of the people, and fostered in them a rapacious and gambling spirit, to which many of the evils that have since overtaken us have owed their origin.

  But we may take a more extensive view of the subject of national responsibility.

  In the American war England desired to gratify her acquisitiveness and self-esteem, in opposition to benevolence and justice, at the expense of the trans-Atlantic colonies. This roused the animal resentment of the latter, and the lower faculties of the two nations came into collision; that is to say, they made war on each other; England to support a dominion in direct hostility to the principles which regulate the moral government of the world, in the expectation of becoming rich and powerful by success in that enterprise; the Americans, to assert the supremacy of the higher sentiments, and to become free and independent. According to the principles which I am now unfolding, the greatest misfortune that could have befallen England would have been success, and the greatest advantage, failure in her attempt; and the result is now acknowledged to be in exact accordance with these views. If England had subdued the colonies in the American war, every one must see to what an extent her self-esteem, acquisitiveness, and destructiveness would have been let loose upon them; this, in the first place, would have roused their animal faculties, and led them to give her all the annoyance in their power, and the fleets and armies requisite to repress this spirit would have far counterbalanced, in expense, all the profits she could have wrung out of the colonists, by extortion and oppression. In the second place, the very exercise of these animal faculties by herself, in opposition to the moral sentiments, would have rendered her government at home an exact parallel of that of the carter in his own family. The same malevolent principles would have overflowed on her own subjects, the government would have felt uneasy, the people rebellious, discontented, and unhappy, and the moral law would have been amply vindicated by the suffering which would have everywhere abounded. The consequences of her failure have been exactly the reverse. America has sprung up into a great and moral nation, and actually contributes ten times more to the wealth of Britain, standing as she now does, in her natural relation to this country, than she ever could have done, as a discontented and oppressed colony. This advantage is reaped without any loss, anxiety, or expense; it flows from the divine institutions, and both nations profit by and rejoice under it. The moral and intellectual rivalry of America, instead of prolonging the predominance of the propensities in Britain, tends strongly to excite the moral sentiments in her people and government; and every day that we live, we are reaping the benefits of this improvement in wiser institutions, deliverance from endless abuses, and a higher and purer spirit pervading every department of the executive administration of the country. Britain, however, did not escape the penalty of her attempt at the infringement of the moral laws. The pages of her history, during the American war, are dark with suffering and gloom, and at this day we groan under the debt and difficulties then partly incurred.

  If the world be constituted on the principles of the supremacy of the moral sentiments and intellect, the method of one nation seeking riches and power, by conquering, devastating, or obstructing the prosperity of other states, must be essentially futile. Being in opposition to the moral constitution of creation, it must occasion misery while in progress, and can lead to no result except the impoverishment and mortification of the people who pursue it. The national debt of Britain has been contracted chiefly in wars, originating in commercial jealousy and thirst of conquest; in short, under the suggestions of combativeness, destructiveness, acquisitiveness, and self-esteem. Did not our ancestors, therefore, impede their own prosperity and happiness by engaging in these contests? and have any consequences of them reached us, except the burden of paying nearly thirty millions of taxes annually as the price of the gratification of their propensities? Would a statesman, who believed in the doctrine of this essay, have recommended these wars as essential to national prosperity? If the twentieth part of the sums had been spent in objects recognized by the moral sentiments, for example, in instituting seminaries of education, penitentiaries, making roads, canals, public granaries, etc., how different would have been the present condition of the country!