Men Lived Like Fishes; The Great Ones

God Leaves To Man The Choice Of Forms In Government; And Those Who Constitute One Form, May Abrogate It.

If The Public Safety Be Provided, Liberty And Propriety Secured, Justice Administered, Virtue Encouraged, Vice Suppressed, And The True Interest Of The Nation Advanced, The Ends Of Government Are Accomplished . . .

Machiavel, Discoursing On These Matters, Finds Virtue To Be So Essentially Necessary To The Establishment And Preservation Of Liberty, That He Thinks It Impossible For A Corrupted People To Set Up A Good Government, Or For A Tyranny To Be Introduced If They Be Virtuous; And Makes This Conclusion, 'that Where The Matter (that Is, The Body Of The People) Is Not Corrupted, Tumults And Disorders Do Not Hurt; And Where It Is Corrupted, Good Laws Do No Good:' Which Being Confirmed By Reason And Experience, I Think No Wise Man Has Ever Contradicted Him.

[a]ll Popular And Well-mixed Governments [republics] . . . Are Ever Established By Wise And Good Men, And Can Never Be Upheld Otherwise Than By Virtue: The Worst Men Always Conspiring Against Them, They Must Fall, If The Best Have Not Power To Preserve Them. . . . [and] Unless They Be Preserved In A Great Measure Free From Vices . . . .

That Which Is Not Just, Is Not Law; And That Which Is Not Law, Ought Not To Be Obeyed.