For a long time,
however, those factions gave no small degree of influence to the foreign
chiefs in every commonwealth in which they existed. I do not mean to
pursue further the track of these parties. I allude to this part of
history only as it furnishes an instance of that species of faction
which broke the locality of public affections, and united descriptions
of citizens more with strangers than with their countrymen of different
opinions.
[Sidenote: French fundamental principle.]
The political dogma, which, upon the new French system, is to unite the
factions of different nations, is this: "That the majority, told by the
head, of the taxable people in every country, is the perpetual, natural,
unceasing, indefeasible sovereign; that this majority is perfectly
master of the form as well as the administration of the state, and that
the magistrates, under whatever names they are called, are only
functionaries to obey the orders (general as laws or particular as
decrees) which that majority may make; that this is the only natural
government; that all others are tyranny and usurpation.
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