Excerpt from The Constitutional Adviser
The Reformers have acted upon that principle; and they have even attempted to drag talent and splendid services, which always had their just value in public estimation, from their pedestals, and expose them to the abuse of the populace. Virtue itself has been mangled. Neither humanity, unaffected piety, nor the warmest love of country, have been spared. Such are the tactics that have been pursued by the leaders of the Reformers; and considering the species of warfare they are waging, they are certainly qualified to take the lead in so flagitious a service. Coarse, unfeeling, and unprincipled, they have a natural antipathy to all the refinements which the improvement of manners and the progress of mind have introduced into society. Their hearts, which, as to every generous purpose, are cold as clay, give an instinctive approval to the most dishonorable suggestions of their heads; and as no moral obligation places a bar between them and the objects of their pursuit, there is no extravagance in supposing that their hands would unsparingly execute whatever their minds might recommend. They have already condemned authority, rank, wealth, public services, and personal merit; and they only want power to carry the sentence into execution.
So peremptory a tone of censure, as we have used towards the Reformers, it may be said, does not agree with the temperate character of an Adviser. If we had the faintest hopes that advice would operate upon them, we should employ it to divert them from designs, which, it is to be feared, are founded more upon criminal than mistaken motives. If all the sages that have appeared upon earth, were to rise from the dead, and use their united powers of persuasion, they would make no impression upon this obdurate faction. They are too stiff-necked a race to be diverted from their purpose by admonition. By firm measures alone they are to be kept in awe; and it is only energy, tempered by wisdom, that can check them in their head-long course. But in our character of Constitutional Adviser, we shall occasionally address ourselves to those, who have the preservation of the public peace, and the security of our establishments entrusted to their care. They have awful duties to discharge. The multiplicity of their cares and the importance of their functions, must necessarily expose them to the danger of relaxing too much at one time, and overstraining at another, the cord of authority. They may, therefore, find the opinions of an independent and impartial observer in some instances useful. Their line of proceeding is plain, and can only be abandoned from an excessive zeal in the public service. They are liable at the same time to have false information imposed upon them by persons who have, in some measure, an interest in highly colouring their statements. The course of conduct which at this crisis might be confidently and safely traced to public men, would be strictly constitutional. Should they err within that circle, the error might be soon repaired. Every extra constitutional act recoils at last on the depositaries of power, and is sure to excite a dangerous sympathy in favour of those whom both justice and humanity were before loud in condemning. A recent and lamentable occurrence has been as favourable to the views of the disaffected as it has been injurious to the public interests. But this feeling may be carried to a pernicious extent; and we implore all those, who have the safely of the country at heart, not to permit their feelings, with respect to that transaction, to influence their opinion on the subject of Reform.
We seize this opportunity to distinguish between practical and constitutional Reform. To the latter, our aversion is incurable; because we are persuaded it would lead to the overthrow of the present form of government, and to a revolution of the most sanguinary and sweeping character. A convulsion would be distinguished by extreme. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Constitutional Adviser (Classic Reprint)