There is, nevertheless, a side of truth in the constitutionalist view, which Mr. Carlyle, I think, overlooks. That it can help to do. Russia has been, for two centuries now but too patent a proof of the truth of this assertion. But even in this case, the moral element is the most important, and just the one which is overlooked.
Bad men can abuse the best of laws, the best of constitutions.
Look at the working of our parliaments during the reigns of William III and Anne, and see how powerless good constitutions are, when the men who work them are false and venal. Look, on the other hand, at the Roman Empire from the time of Vespasian to that of the Antonines, and see how well even a bad constitution will succeed, when good men are working it. Bad laws, I say, will work tolerably under good men, if fitted to the existing circumstances by men of the world, as all Roman laws were. But when defective Roman laws begun to be worked by bad men, and that for 200 years, then indeed came times of evil. Let us take, then, Salvian's own account of the cause of Roman decay.