I
proceeded upon principles of research to put me in possession of my
matter, on principles of method to regulate it, and on principles in the
human mind and in civil affairs to secure and perpetuate the operation.
I conceived nothing arbitrarily, nor proposed anything to be done by the
will and pleasure of others or my own,--but by reason, and by reason
only. I have ever abhorred, since the first dawn of my understanding to
this its obscure twilight, all the operations of opinion, fancy,
inclination, and will, in the affairs of government, where only a
sovereign reason, paramount to all forms of legislation and
administration, should dictate. Government is made for the very purpose
of opposing that reason to will and to caprice, in the reformers or in
the reformed, in the governors or in the governed, in kings, in senates,
or in people.
On a careful review, therefore, and analysis of all the component parts
of the civil list, and on weighing them against each other, in order to
make as much as possible all of them a subject of estimate, (the
foundation and corner-stone of all regular, provident economy,) it
appeared to me evident that this was impracticable, whilst that part
called the pension list was totally discretionary in its amount. For
this reason, and for this only, I proposed to reduce it, both in its
gross quantity and in its larger individual proportions, to a certainty;
lest, if it were left without a _general_ limit, it might eat up the
civil list service,--if suffered to be granted in portions too great for
the fund, it might defeat its own end, and, by unlimited allowances to
some, it might disable the crown in means of providing for others.
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