The perfect cure is impracticable, because the
disorder is dear to those from whom alone the cure can possibly be
derived. The utmost to be done is to palliate, to mitigate, to
respite, to put off the evil day of the Constitution to its latest
possible hour, and may it be a very late one!
This bill, I fear, would precipitate one of two consequences, I know
not which most likely, or which most dangerous: either that the
Crown by its constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would
wear out all opposition in elections, or that a violent and furious
popular spirit would arise. I must see, to satisfy me, the
remedies; I must see, from their operation in the cure of the old
evil, and in the cure of those new evils, which are inseparable from
all remedies, how they balance each other, and what is the total
result. The excellence of mathematics and metaphysics is to have
but one thing before you, but he forms the best judgment in all
moral disquisitions, who has the greatest number and variety of
considerations, in one view before him, and can take them in with
the best possible consideration of the middle results of all.
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