An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

fond of calling parliaments, and of

considering as equal in authority to the parliament of Great

Britain, should be so far degraded as to become the humble

ministers and executive officers of that parliament, the greater

part of their own importance would be at an end. They have

rejected, therefore, the proposal of being taxed by parliamentary

requisition, and, like other ambitious and high-spirited men,

have rather chosen to draw the sword in defence of their own

importance.

 

Towards the declension of the Roman republic, the allies of Rome,

who had borne the principal burden of defending the state and

extending the empire, demanded to be admitted to all the

privileges of Roman citizens. Upon being refused, the social war

broke out. During the course of that war, Rome granted those

privileges to the greater part of them, one by one, and in

proportion as they detached themselves from the general

confederacy. The parliament of Great Britain insists upon taxing

the colonies ; and they refuse to be taxed by a parliament in

which they are not represented. If to each colony which should

detach itself from the general confederacy, Great Britain should

allow such a number of representatives as suited the proportion

of what it contributed to the public revenue of the empire, in

consequence of its being subjected to the same taxes. and in

compensation admitted to the same freedom of trade with its

fellow-subjects at home; the number of its representatives to be

augmented as the proportion of its contribution might afterwards

augment ; a new method of acquiring importance, a new and more

dazzling object of ambition, would be presented to the leading

men of each colony. Instead of piddling for the little prizes

which are to be found in what may be called the paltry raffle of

colony faction, they might then hope, from the presumption which

men naturally have in their own ability and good fortune, to draw

some of the great prizes which sometimes come from the wheel of

the great state lottery of British politics. Unless this or some

other method is fallen upon, and there seems to be none more

ubvious than this, of preserving the importance and of gratifying

the ambition of the leading men of America, it is not very

probable that they will ever voluntarily submit to us; and we

ought to consider, that the blood which must be shed in forcing

them to do so, is, every drop of it, the blood either of those

who are, or of those whom we wish to have for our fellow

citizens. They are very weak who flatter themselves that, in the

state to which things have come, our colonies will be easily

conquered by force alone. The persons who now govern the

resolutions of what they call their continental congress, feel in

themselves at this moment a degree of importance which, perhaps,

the greatest subjects in Europe scarce feel. From shopkeepers,

trades men, and attorneys, they are become statesmen and

legislators, and are employed in contriving a new form of

government for an extensive empire, which, they flatter

themselves, will become, and which, indeed, seems very likely to

become, one of the greatest and most formidable that ever was in

the world. Five hundred different people, perhaps, who, in

different ways, act immediately under the continental congress,

and five hundred thousand, perhaps, who act under those five

hundred, all feel, in the same manner, a proportionable rise in

their own importance. Almost every individual of the governing

party in America fills, at present, in his own fancy, a station

superior, not only to what he had ever filled before, but to what

he had ever expected to fill; and unless some new object of

ambition is presented either to him or to his leaders, if he has

the ordinary spirit of a man, he will die in defence of that

station.

 

It is a remark of the President Heynaut, that we now read with

pleasure the account of many little transactions of the Ligue,

which, when they happened, were not, perhaps, considered as very

important pieces of news. But everyman then, says he, fancied

himself of some importance ; and the innumerable memoirs which

have come down to us from those times, were the greater part of

them written by people who took pleasure in recording and

magnifying events, in which they flattered themselves they had

been considerable actors. How obstinately the city of Paris, upon

that occasion, defended itself, what a dreadful famine it

supported, rather than submit to the best, and afterwards the

most beloved of all the French kings, is well known. The greater

part of the citizens, or those who governed the greater part of

them, fought in defence of their own importance, which, they

foresaw, was to be at an end whenever the ancient government

should be re-established. Our colonies, unless they can be

induced to consent to a union, are very likely to defend

themselves, against the best of all mother countries, as

obstinately as the city of Paris did against one of the best of

kings.

 

The idea of representation was unknown in ancient times. When the

people of one state were admitted to the right of citizenship in

another, they had no other means of exercising that right, but by

coming in a body to vote and deliberate with the people of that

other state. The admission of the greater part of the inhabitants

of Italy to the privileges of Roman citizens, completely ruined

the Roman republic. It was no longer possible to distinguish

between who was, and who was not, a Roman citizen. No tribe could

know its own members. A rabble of any kind could be introduced

into the assemblies of the people, could drive out the real

citizens, and decide upon the affairs of the republic, as if they

themselves had been such. But though America were to send fifty

or sixty new representatives to parlimnent, the door-keeper of

the house of commons could not find any great difficulty in

distinguishing between who was and who was not a member. Though

the Roman constitution, therefore, was necessarily ruined by the

union of Rome with the allied states of Italy, there is not the

least probability that the British constitution would be hurt by

the union of Great Britain with her colonies. That

constitution, on the contrary, would be completed by it, and

seems to be imperfect without it. The assembly which deliberates

and decides concerning the affairs of every part of the empire,

in order to be properly informed, ought certainly to have

representatives from every part of it. That this union, however,

could be easily effectuated, or that difficulties, and great

difficulties, might not occur in the execution, I do not pretend.

I have yet heard of none, however, which appear insurmountable.

The principal, perhaps, arise, not from the nature of things, but

from the prejudices and opinions of the people, both on this and

on the other side of the Atlantic.

 

We on this side the water are afraid lest the multitude of

American representatives should overturn the balance of the

constitution, and increase too much either the influence of the

crown on the one hand, or the force of the democracy on the

other. But if the number of American representatives were to be

in proportion to the produce of American taxation, the number of

people to be managed would increase exactly in proportion to the

means of managing them, and the means of managing to the number

of people to be managed. The monarchical and democratical parts

of the constitution would, after the union, stand exactly in the

same degree of relative force with regard to one another as they

had done before.

 

The people on the other side of the water are afraid lest their

distance from the seat of government might expose them to many

oppressions ; but their representatives in parliament, of which

the number ought from the first to be considerable, would easily

be able to protect them from all oppression. The distance could

not much weaken the dependency of the representative upon the

constituent, and the former would still feel that he owed his

seat in parliament, and all the consequence which he derived from

it, to the good-will of the latter. It would be the interest of

the former, therefore, to cultivate that good-will, by

complaining, with all the authority of a member of the

legislature, of every outrage which any civil or military officer

might be guilty of in those remote parts of the empire. The

distance of America from the seat of government, besides, the

natives of that country might flatter themselves, with some

appearance of reason too, would not be of very long continuance.

Such has hitherto been the rapid progress of that country in

wealth, population, and improvement, that in the course of little

more than a century, perhaps, the produce of the American might

exceed that of the British taxation. The seat of the empire would

then naturally remove itself to that part of the empire which

contributed most to the general defence and support of the whole.

 

The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East

Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most

important events recorded in the history of mankind. Their

consequences have already been great; but, in the short period of

between two and three centuries which has elapsed since these

discoveries were made, it is impossible that the whole extent of

their consequences can have been seen. What benefits or what

misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great

events, no human wisdom can foresee. By uniting in some measure

the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve

one another’s wants, to increase one another’s enjoyments, and to

encourage one another’s industry, their general tendency would

seem to be beneficial. To the natives, however, both of the East

and West Indies, all the commercial benefits which can have

resulted from those events have been sunk and lost in the

dreadful misfortunes which they have occasioned. These

misfortunes, however, seem to have arisen rather from accident

than from any thing in the nature of those events themselves. At

the particular time when these discoveries were made, the

superiority of force happened to be so great on the side of the

Europeans, that they were enabled to commit with impunity every

sort of injustice in those remote countries. Hereafter, perhaps,

the natives of those countries may grow stronger, or those of

Europe may grow weaker ; and the inhabitants of all the different

quarters of the world may arrive at that equality of courage and

force which, by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe the

injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for

the rights of one another. But nothing seems more likely to

establish this equality of force, than that mutual communication

of knowledge, and of all sorts of improvements, which an

extensive commerce from all countries to all countries naturally,

or rather necessarily, carries along with it.

 

In the mean time, one of the principal effects of those

discoveries has been, to raise the mercantile system to a degree

of splendour and glory which it could never otherwise have

attained to. It is the object of that system to enrich a great

nation, rather by trade and manufactures than by the improvement

and cultivation of land, rather by the industry of the towns than

by that of the country. But in consequence of those discoveries,

the commercial towns of Europe, instead of being the

manufacturers and carriers for but a very small part of the world

(that part of Europe which is washed by the Atlantic ocean, and

the countries which lie round the Baltic and Mediterranean seas),

have now become the manufacturers for the numerous