The Columbiad: A Poem

by Joel Barlow

Until the institution of representative republics, which are of recent date, it was found that those constitutions of government were best calculated for immediate energy and duration, which were interwoven with some religious system. The legislator who appears in the character of an inspired person renders his political institutions sacred, and interests the conscience as well as the judgment in their support. The Jewish lawgiver had this advantage over the Spartan: he appeared not in the character of a mere earthly governor, but as an interpreter of the divine will. By enjoining a religious observance of certain rites he formed his people to habitual obedience; by directing their cruelty against the breakers of the laws he at least mitigated the rancor of private hatred; by directing that real property should return to the original families in the year of Jubilee he prevented too great an equality of wealth; and by selecting a single tribe to be the interpreters of religion he prevented its mysteries from being the subject of profane and vulgar investigation. With a view of securing the permanence of his institutions, he prohibited intercourse with foreigners by severe restrictions, and formed his people to habits and a character disagreeable to other nations; so that any foreign intercourse was prevented by the mutual hatred of both parties.

To these institutions the laws of Lycurgus bear a striking resemblance. The features of his constitution were severe and forbidding; it was however calculated to inspire the most enthusiastic love of liberty and martial honor. In no country was the patriotic passion more energetic than in Sparta; no laws ever excluded the idea of separate property in an equal degree, or inspired a greater contempt for the manners of other nations. The prohibition of money, commerce and almost every thing desirable to effeminate nations, excluded foreigners from Sparta; and while it inspired the people with contempt for strangers it made them agreeable to each other. By these means Lycurgus rendered the nation warlike; and to insure the duration of the government he endeavored to interest the consciences of his people by the aid of oracles, and by the oath he is said to have exacted from them to obey his laws till his return, when he went into perpetual exile.

From this view of the Jewish and Spartan institutions, applied to the principles before stated, they appear in the two first articles considerably imperfect, and in the last totally defective. Neither of them was calculated to bring any considerable territory or number of men under one jurisdiction: from this circumstance alone they could not be rendered permanent, as nations so restricted in their means of extension must be constantly exposed to their more powerful neighbors. But the third object of legislation, that of providing for the future progress of society, which as it regards the happiness of mankind is the most important of the three, was in both instances entirely neglected. These symptoms appear to have been formed with an express design to prevent future improvement in knowledge or enlargement of the human mind, and to fix those nations in a state of ignorance and barbarism. To vindicate their authors from an imputation of weakness or inattention in this particular, it may be urged that they were each of them surrounded by nations more powerful than their own; it was therefore perhaps impossible for them to commence an establishment upon any other plan.

The institutions of Mahomet are next to be considered. The first object of legislation appears to have been better understood by him than by either of the preceding sages; his jurisdiction was capable of being enlarged to any extent of territory, and governing any number of nations that might be subjugated by his enthusiastic armies; and his system of religion was admirably calculated to attain this object. Like Moses, he convinced his people that he acted as the vicegerent of God; but with this advantage, adapting his religion to the natural feelings and propensities of mankind, he multiplied his followers by the allurements of pleasure and the promise of a sensual paradise. These circumstances were likewise sure to render his constitution durable. His religious system was so easy to be understood, so splendid and so inviting, there could be no danger that the people would lose sight of its principles, and no necessity of future prophets to explain its doctrines or reform the nation. To these advantages if we add the exact and rigid military discipline, the splendor and sacredness of the monarch, and that total ignorance among the people which such a system will produce and perpetuate, the establishment must have been evidently calculated for a considerable extent and duration. But the last and most important end of government, that of mental improvement and social happiness, was deplorably lost in the institution. There was probably more learning and cultivated genius in Arabia, in the days of this extraordinary man, than can now be found in all the Mahometan dominions.

On the contrary, the enterprising mind of the Russian monarch appears to have been wholly bent on the arts of civilization and the improvement of society among his subjects. Established in a legal title to a throne which already commanded a prodigious extent of country, he found the first object of government already secured; and by applying himself with great sagacity to the third object, that of improving his people, it was reasonable to suppose that the second, the durability of his system, would become a necessary consequence. He effected his purposes, important as they were, merely by the introduction of the arts and the encouragement of politer manners. The greatness of his character appears not so much in his institutions, which he copied from other nations, as in the extraordinary measures he followed to introduce them, the judgment he showed in selecting and adapting them to the genius of his subjects, and the surprising assiduity by which he raised a savage people to an elevated rank among European nations.

To the nature and operation of the several forms of government above mentioned I will compare that of the Peruvian lawgiver. I have observed in a preceding note that the knowledge we have of Manco Capac is necessarily imperfect and obscure, derived thro traditions and family registers (without the aid of writing) for four hundred years; from the time he is supposed to have lived, till that of his historian and descendant, Inca Garcilasso de la Vega. About an equal interval elapsed from the supposed epoch of the first kings of Rome to that of their first historians; a longer space from Lycurgus to Herodotus; probably not a shorter one from the time of the great Cyrus to that of Xenophon, author of the elegant romance on the actions of that hero.

I recal the reader's attention to these comparisons, not with a view of contending that our accounts of the actions ascribed to Capac are derived from authentic records, and that he is a subject of real history, like Mahomet or Peter; but to show that, our channels of information with regard to him being equally respectable with those that have brought us acquainted with the classical and venerable names of Lycurgus, Romulus, Numa and Cyrus, we may be as correct in our reasonings from the modern as from the ancient source of reference, and fancy ourselves treading a ground as sacred on the tomb of the western patriarch, as on those more frequented and less scrutinized in the east, consecrated to the demigods of Sparta, Rome and Persia.

It is probable that the savages of Peru before the time of Capac, among other objects of adoration, paid homage to the sun. By availing himself of this popular sentiment he appeared, like Moses and Mahomet, in the character of a divine legislator endowed with supernatural powers. After impressing these ideas on the minds of the people, drawing together a number of the tribes and rendering them subservient to his benevolent purposes, he applied himself to forming the outlines of a plan of policy capable of founding and regulating an extensive empire, wisely calculated for long duration, and well adapted to improve the knowledge, peace and happiness of a considerable portion of mankind. In the allotment of the lands as private property he invented a mode somewhat resembling the feudal system of Europe: yet this system was checked in its operation by a law similar to that of Moses which regulated landed possessions in the year of Jubilee. He divided the lands into three parts; the first was consecrated to the uses of religion, as it was from the sacerdotal part of his system that he doubtless expected its most powerful support. The second portion was set apart for the Inca and his family, to enable him to defray the expenses of government and appear in the style of a monarch. The third and largest portion was allotted to the people; which allotment was repeated every year, and varied according to the number and exigences of each family.

As the Incan race appeared in the character of divinities, it seemed necessary that a subordination of rank should be established, to render the distinction between the monarch and his people more perceptible. With this view he created a band of nobles, who were distinguished by personal and hereditary honors. These were united to the monarch by the strongest ties of interest; in peace they acted as judges and superintended the police of the empire; in war they commanded in the armies. The next order of men were the respectable landholders and cultivators, who composed the principal strength of the nation. Below these was a class of men who were the servants of the public and cultivated the public lands. They possessed no property, and their security depended on their regular industry and peaceable demeanor. Above all these orders were the Inca and his family. He possessed absolute and uncontrolable power; his mandates were regarded as the word of heaven, and the double guilt of impiety and rebellion attended on disobedience.

To impress the utmost veneration for the Incan family, it was a fundamental principle that the royal blood should never be contaminated by any foreign alliance. The mysteries of religion were preserved sacred by the high priest of the royal family under the control of the king, and celebrated with rites capable of making the deepest impression on the multitude. The annual distribution of the lands, while it provided for the varying circumstances of each family, was designed to strengthen the bands of society by perpetuating that distinction of rank among the orders which is supposed necessary to a monarchical government; the peasants could not vie with their superiors, and the nobles could not be subjected by misfortune to a subordinate station. A constant habit of industry was inculcated upon all ranks by the force of example. The cultivation of the soil, which in most other countries is considered as one of the lowest employments, was here regarded as a divine art. Having had no knowledge of it before, and being taught it by the children of their god, the people viewed it as a sacred privilege, a national honor, to assist the sun in opening the bosom of the earth to produce vegetation. That the government might be able to exercise the endearing acts of beneficence, the produce of the public lands was reserved in magazines, to supply the wants of the unfortunate and as a resource in case of scarcity or invasion.