Every profession, not excepting the glorious one of a soldier, or the
sacred one of a priest, is liable to its own particular vices, which,
however, form no argument against those ways of life; nor are the vices
themselves inevitable to every individual in those professions. Of such
a nature are connections in politics; essentially necessary for the full
performance of our public duty, accidentally liable to degenerate into
faction. Commonwealths are made of families, free commonwealths of
parties also; and we may as well affirm, that our natural regards and
ties of blood tend inevitably to make men bad citizens, as that the
bonds of our party weaken those by which we are held to our country.
Some legislators went so far as to make neutrality in party a crime
against the state. I do not know whether this might not have been rather
to overstrain the principle. Certain it is, the best patriots in
the greatest commonwealths have always commended and promoted such
connections. Idem sentire de republica, was with them a principal ground
of friendship and attachment; nor do I know any other capable of forming
firmer, dearer, more pleasing, more honourable, and more virtuous
habitudes. The Romans carried this principle a great way. Even the
holding of offices together, the disposition of which arose from chance,
not selection, gave rise to a relation which continued for life. It
was called necessitudo sortis; and it was looked upon with a sacred
reverence. Breaches of any of these kinds of civil relation were
considered as acts of the most distinguished turpitude. The whole people
was distributed into political societies, in which they acted in support
of such interests in the state as they severally affected. For it was
then thought no crime to endeavour, by every honest means, to advance
to superiority and power those of your own sentiments and opinions. This
wise people was far from imagining that those connections had no tie,
and obliged to no duty; but that men might quit them without shame, upon
every call of interest. They believed private honour to be the great
foundation of public trust; that friendship was no mean step towards
patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed
he regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public
situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own.