Every execution of law, every movement
of the state, every civil and military operation, in which his power is
exerted, must serve to confirm his authority, and present him to the view
of the public as the sole object of consideration, fear, and respect. Those
very establishments which were devised, in one age, to limit or to direct
the exercise of an executive power, will serve, in another, to remove
obstructions, and to smooth its way; they will point out the channels in
which it may run, without giving offence, or without exciting alarms, and
the very councils which were instituted to check its encroachments, will,
in a time of corruption, furnish an aid to its usurpations.
The passion for independence, and the love of dominion, frequently arise
from a common source: there is, in both, an aversion to control; and he
who, in one situation, cannot brook a superior, may, in another, dislike to
be joined with an equal.
What the prince, under a pure or limited monarchy, is, by the constitution
of his country, the leader of a faction would willingly become in
republican governments.
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