In its preventive police it
ought to be sparing of its efforts, and to employ means, rather few,
unfrequent, and strong, than many, and frequent, and, of course, as
they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small and feeble.
Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to
wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their
duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains
will, in a manner, provide for itself. But as they descend from the
state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a
private house, they go on accelerated in their fall. They _cannot_ do
the lower duty; and in proportion as they try it, they will certainly
fail in the higher. They ought to know the different departments of
things,--what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To
these great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law.
Our legislature has fallen into this fault, as well as other
governments: all have fallen into it more or less. The once mighty state
which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose
ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this
error. I can never quote France without a foreboding sigh,--[Greek:
ESSETAI HMAP] Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the
flames of the great rival of his country. That state has fallen by the
hands of the parricides of their country, called the Revolutionists and
Constitutionalists of France: a species of traitors, of whose fury and
atrocious wickedness nothing in the annals of the frenzy and depravation
of mankind had before furnished an example, and of whom I can never
think or speak without a mixed sensation of disgust, of horror, and of
detestation, not easy to be expressed.
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