Who would insure
a tender and delicate sense of honor to beat almost with the first
pulses of the heart when no man could know what would be the test of
honor in a nation continually varying the standard of its coin? No
part of life would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard to
science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and
manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady
education and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth itself
would, in a few generations, crumble away, be disconnected into the
dust and powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all the
winds of heaven.
To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten
thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest
prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should
approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution,
that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its
subversion, that he should approach to the faults of the state as to
the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. By
this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those
children of their country who are prompt rashly to hack that aged
parent in pieces and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes
that by their poisonous weeds and wild incantations they may
regenerate the paternal constitution and renovate their father's life.
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