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.
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