Elevation of purpose, though a condition of the best achievements, is also a condition of the worst. The maximum of evil is never done save by the agency of men and women of disinterested lives and virtuous intentions.
If there be in political economy anything universally acknowledged, and with which intelligent governments are in accord, it is that the precious metals should be treated as merchandise, and left ot the free action of commerce, including, of course, the liberty of melting and all that appertains to it.
American liberty, as it now is, may be considered the result of a mixture, in unequal proportions, of the theories of Jefferson with the New England usages. From these dissimilar tendencies has resulted a series of contradictory measures, which have become strangely complicated with each other, and which might puzzle and deceive a careless observer. It is in consequence of these opposite influences in the bosom of American society, that such conflicting judgments have been passed upon it; it is because the Yankee type is at present the stronger, whilst the Virginian was superior in the period of the revolution, that the ideas which the sight of America now suggests, are so different from those which she inspired at the epoch of Independence.
The United States constitute a society which moves under the impulse and by the guidance of instinct, rather than according to any premeditated plan; it does know itself. It rejects the tyranny of a past, which is exclusively military in its character, and yet is deeply imbued with the sentiment of order. It has been nurtured in the hatred of the old political systems of Europe; but a feeling of the necessity of self-restraint runs through its veins. It is divided between its instinctive perceptions of the future and its aversion to the past; between its thirst after freedom, and its hunger for social order; between its religious veneration of experience, and its horror of the violence of past ages.
The interference of the State in matters of Economy by means of regulations, protective duties, monopolies, and imposts, rests on the old idea of the omnipotence and omniscience of the governor, and the incapacity and ignorance of the governed.
It is justified under a rule by divine right; it is inadmissible under a government by discussion.
It is always costly.
Government is rigid; it cannot accommodate itself to new wants and difficulties. In order to act with regularity, it has had to bind itself by fixed rules. It can only act in a given direction and in a given manner. The necessity for order has given the spirit of control the predominance of that of initiative.
When Government has once made a blunder, it perpetuates it indefinitely.
Government is naturally prodigal, for it spends other people’s money; and the more a department spends, the more important it is.
The progress of civilization necessitates the giving of greater and greater attention and intelligence to public affairs.
Charity is false, futile, and poisonous when offered as a substitute for justice.
Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution.