government, as the depositary of the national power, neglect it. But more than this; to speak generally, and with certain degrees of possible exception, we may affirm that a government _cannot_ be lastingly neglectful of a great duty but because the individuals constituting the community are so. An assertion, that a government has been utterly and criminally neglectful of the moral condition of the inferior population, age after age, and through every change of its administrators; but that, nevertheless, the generality of the individuals of intelligence, wealth, and influence, have all the while been of a quite opposite spirit, zealously intent on remedying the flagrant evil, would be instantly rejected as a contradiction. Such an enlightened and philanthropic spirit prevailing widely among the individuals of the nation would carry its impulse into the government in one manner or another. It would either constrain the administrators of the state to act in conformity, or ultimately displace them in favor of better men. Even if, short of such a _general_ activity of the respectable and locally influential members of society, a large proportion of them had vigorously prosecuted such a purpose, it would have compelled the administrators of the state to consider, even for their own sake, whether they should be content to see so important a process going on independently of them, and in contrast with their own disgraceful neglect. But at the worst, and on the supposition that they were obstinately inaccessible to all moral and philanthropic considerations, still a grand improvement would have been accomplished, if many thousands of the responsible members of the community had attempted it with zealous and persevering exertion. The neglect, therefore, of the improvement of the people, so glaring in the review of our conduct as a nation, has been, to a very great extent, the insensibility of individuals to obligations lying on them as such, independently of the institutions and administration of the state.