All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with
experience, that all governments must frequently infringe the rules of
justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to
dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity to the reigning
interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of
state. It is a reason which I own I cannot penetrate. What sort of a
protection is this of the general right, that is maintained by
infringing the rights of particulars? What sort of justice is this which
is enforced by breaches of its own laws? These paradoxes I leave to be
solved by the able heads of legislators and politicians. For my part, I
say what a plain man would say on such occasion. I can never believe
that any institution, agreeable to nature, and proper for mankind, could
find it necessary, or even expedient, in any case whatsoever, to do what
the best and worthiest instinct of mankind warn us to avoid. But no
wonder that what is set up in opposition to the state of nature should
preserve itself by trampling upon the law of nature.