[9] Spirit of Laws. Book 4.
[10] The power of entailing real estates is repugnant to the spirit of our American governments.
[11] I have known instructions from the inhabitants of a county, two thirds of whom could not write their names. How competent must such men be to decide an important point in legislation!
[12] Middleton's life of Cicero, volume 1, page 14.
[13] It is worthy of remark, that in proportion as laws are favorable to the equal rights of men, the number of crimes in a state is diminished; except where the human mind is debased by extreme servitude, or by superstition. In France, there are but few crimes; religion and the rigor of a military force prevent them; perhaps also, ignorance in the peasantry may be assigned as another reason. But in England and Ireland the human mind is not so depressed, yet the distribution of property and honors is not equal; the lower classes of people, bold and independent, as well as poor, feel the injuries which flow from the feudal system, even in its relaxed state; they become desperate, and turn highwaymen. Hence those kingdoms produce more culprits than half Europe besides.
The character of the Jews, as sharpers, is derived from the cruel and villanous proscriptions, which they have suffered from the bigotry of Christians in every part of Europe.
Most of the criminals condemned in America are foreigners. The execution of a native, before the revolution, was a novelty. The distribution of property in America and the principles of government favor the rights of men; and but few men will commence enemies to society and government, if they can receive the benefits of them. Unjust governments and tyrannical distinctions have made most of the villains that ever existed.
[14] It has been already observed that a child always imitates what he sees and hears: For this reason, he should hear no language which is not correct and decent. Every word spoken to a child, should be pronounced with clearness and propriety. Banish from children all diminutive words, all whining and all bad grammar. A boy of six years old may be taught to speak as correctly, as Cicero did before the Roman Senate.
[15] Nothing can be more fatal to domestic happiness in America, than a taste for copying the luxurious manners and amusements of England and France. Dancing, drawing and music, are principal articles of education in those kingdoms; therefore every girl in America must pass two or three years at a boarding school, tho her father cannot give her a farthing when she marries. This ambition to educate females above their fortunes pervades every part of America. Hence the disproportion between the well bred females and the males in our large towns. A mechanic or shopkeeper in town, or a farmer in the country, whose sons get their living by their father's employments, will send their daughters to a boarding school, where their ideas are elevated, and their views carried above a connexion with men in those occupations. Such an education, without fortune or beauty, may possibly please a girl of fifteen, but must prove her greatest misfortune. This fatal mistake is illustrated in every large town in America. In the country, the number of males and females, is nearly equal; but in towns, the number of genteelly bred women is greater than of men; and in some towns, the proportion is, as three to one.
The heads of young people of both sexes are often turned by reading descriptions of splendid living, of coaches, of plays, and other amusements. Such descriptions excite a desire to enjoy the same pleasures. A fortune becomes the principal object of pursuit; fortunes are scarce in America, and not easily acquired; disappointment succeeds, and the youth who begins life with expecting to enjoy a coach, closes the prospect with a small living, procured by labor and economy.