In France, Where it is still heavier, but
less despotic, as Montesquieu supposes, than in some other countries,
and where there are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to
crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three
years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were
engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more blood was spilt. In
Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is death, insurrections are the
events of every day. Compare again the ferocious depredations of
their insurgents, with the order, the moderation, and the almost
self-extinguishment of ours. And say, finally, whether peace is best
preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the
people. This last is the most certain and the most legitimate engine of
government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them
to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they
will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education
to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the
preservation of our liberty.
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