186
AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
All civilized countries that I know anything about have a vagrant law-this state has one, and it is a very good and just and necessary one- The old Ayt 0 paid no regard to it-tlie mem,bers of that body believed tliat it ·would dist1'0J/ tlieir popularity to attempt to stop 01· correct disorder. I was of a different opinion and censured them for permitting rioting drunkeness and fighting etc to the extent that prevailed here last year, and I advised the present Ayto to publish the law on the subject and to execute it vigorously. They have published it in full, and tliat has raised a clamor against them. I regret very much that good citizens should suffer themselves to be operated upon by the clamors of disorderly and bad men, because it tends to encourage such men to be clamorous---they know that they have nothing to hope from the law nor from justice, for if the law was executed and justice clone them they would suffer heavy penalties and it is therefore their interest to gull the people by cry- ing out oppression, and trying to enlist their sympathies, and creat- ing prejudices against the authorities. I regret this state of things exceedingly, it has caused me to doubt that there is either a want of judgment in the mass of the people to discriminate between a rigid and just execution of the laws, and an abuse of them or that there is n great mass of moral depravity which revolts from rc- stra.i[n]t or legal control. I believe however that the evil proceeds from the former, rather than from the latter cause. It is highly per- nicious no matter from what cause it proceeds, for if the people can be operated upon by clamorous men, everything like stability or security in the administration of Govt is at an end-the civil au- thority must be sustained by public confidence or it can do nothing, and if the people are mere puppets in the hands of artfull dema- gogues and clamorous factionists whose interest it is to discredit the civil authorities and throw them into ridicule, where is the security of honest men 1 It is in the good sence and morality of a grog shop or common brothel, rather than in the law or in the officers of justicer- A man who has mixed a great deal with the people of this colony and whose judgment of human nature is very good has told me repeatedly that a few clamorous bad men with smooth and plausible tongues could throw the people into a ferment and create a prejudice against the civil authorities whenever they pleased. I fear his opinion was well founded tho not because the people are generally in favor of bad men, but because they lack judge- ment to discriminate between what is the duty of a public officer, and an abuse of his authority- This want of judgement arises from a want of lmowledge of the laws by which the persons in office are obliged to be governed, and also from a disposition to be suspicious and jealous of " men in power " it is to be sure a pigmy
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