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Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate
contracts for objects of mere occasional interest
may be dissolved at pleasure, but the state ought
not to be considered as nothing better than a
partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and
coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such
low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary
interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the
parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things
subservient only to the gross animal existence of
a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a
partnership in every virtue and in all perfection.
As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living,
but between those who are dead, and those who
are to be born. Each contract of each particular
state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society... according to a fixed
compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which
holds all physical and all moral natures each in
their appointed place....
In this, as in most questions of state, there is
a middle. There is something else than the mere
alternative of absolute destruction or unreformed
existence... I cannot conceive how any man
can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but
carte blanche, upon which he may scribble
whatever he pleases. A man full of warm,
speculative benevolence may wish his society
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otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good
patriot, and a true politician, always considers
how he shall make the most of the existing
material of his country. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together
would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in
the execution....
At once to preserve and to reform is quite
another thing. When the useful parts of an old
establishment are kept, and what is super-added
is to be fitted to what is retained, a vigorous
mind, steady, persevering attention, various
powers of comparison and combination, and the
resources of an understanding fruitful in expedients, are to be exercised; they are to be exercised
in a continued conflict with the combined force
of opposite vices, with the obstinacy that rejects
all improvement, and the levity that is fatigued
and disgusted with everything of which it is in
possession....
Old establishments are tried by their effects.
If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and
powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that
to be good from whence good is derived. In old
establishments various correctives have been
found for their aberrations from theory. Indeed
they are the results of various necessities and expediences. They are not often constructed after
any theory; theories are rather drawn from
them... The means taught by experience
may be better suited to political ends than those
contrived in the original project....
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