the elements and principles of the law of nations, the great ligament of mankind.  With the law they have of course destroyed all seminaries in which jurisprudence was taught, as well as all the corporations established for its conservation.  I have not heard of any country, whether in Europe or Asia, or even in Africa on this side of Mount Atlas, which is wholly without some such colleges and such corporations, except France.  No man, in a public or private concern, can divine by what rule or principle her judgments are to be directed:  nor is there to be found a professor in any university, or a practitioner in any court, who will hazard an opinion of what is or is not law in France, in any case whatever.  They have not only annulled all their old treaties, but they have renounced the law of nations, from whence treaties have their force.  With a fixed design they have outlawed themselves, and to their power outlawed all other nations.

Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great politic communion with the Christian world, they have constructed their republic on three bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on which the communities of Europe are built.  Its foundation is laid in Regicide, in Jacobinism, and in Atheism; and it has joined to those principles a body of systematic manners which secures their operation.

If I am asked how I would be understood in the use of these terms, Regicide, Jacobinism, Atheism, and a system of correspondent manners, and their establishment, I will tell you.

I call a commonwealth Regicide which lays it down as a fixed law of Nature and a fundamental right of man, that all government, not being a democracy, is an usurpation,[31]—­that all kings, as such, are usurpers, and, for being kings, may and ought to be put to death, with their wives, families, and adherents.  The commonwealth which acts uniformly upon those principles, and which, after abolishing every festival of religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous regicide treason for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which forces all her people to observe it,—­this I call Regicide by Establishment.

Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.  When private men form themselves into associations for the purpose of destroying the preexisting laws and institutions of their country,—­when they secure to themselves an army by dividing amongst the people of no property the estates of the ancient and lawful proprietors,—­when a state recognizes those acts,—­when it does not make confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations,—­when it has its principal strength and all its resources in such a violation of property,—­when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring by judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions,—­I call this Jacobinism by Establishment.