Thus, by preserving the method of Nature in
the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new, in
what we retain we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner
and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the
superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the
image of a relation in blood: binding up the Constitution of our country
with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the
bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with
the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our
state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.
Through the same plan of a conformity to Nature in our artificial
institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful
instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason,
we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from
considering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. Always acting
as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom,
leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful
gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of
habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost
inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers
of any distinction.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316