Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should not a Maccabeus
and his brethren arise to assert the honour of the ancient law, and to
defend the temple of their forefathers, with as ardent a spirit as can
inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the
glory of ancient ages? It is not a hazarded assertion, it is a great
truth, that when once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it
is by acts out of the ordinary course they can alone be re-established.
Republican spirit can only be combated by a spirit of the same nature:
of the same nature, but informed with another principle, and pointing to
another end. I would persuade a resistance, both to the corruption and
to the reformation that prevails. It will not be the weaker, but
much the stronger, for combating both together. A victory over real
corruptions would enable us to baffle the spurious and pretended
reformations. I would not wish to excite, or even to tolerate, that kind
of evil spirit which invokes the powers of hell to rectify the disorders
of the earth. No! I would add my voice with better, and I trust, more
potent charms, to draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from
heaven, for the correction of human vice, and the recalling of human
error from the devious ways into which it has been betrayed. I would
wish to call the impulses of individuals at once to the aid and to the
control of authority. By this, which I call the true republican spirit,
paradoxical as it may appear, monarchies alone can be rescued from
the imbecility of courts and the madness of the crowd. This republican
spirit would not suffer men in high place to bring ruin on their country
and on themselves. It would reform, not by destroying, but by saving,
the great, the rich, and the powerful. Such a republican spirit, we
perhaps fondly conceive to have animated the distinguished heroes and
patriots of old, who knew no mode of policy but religion and virtue.
These they would have paramount to all constitutions; they would not
suffer monarchs, or senates, or popular assemblies, under pretences of
dignity, or authority, or freedom, to shake off those moral riders
which reason has appointed to govern every sort of rude power. These,
in appearance loading them by their weight, do by that pressure augment
their essential force. The momentum is increased by the extraneous
weight. It is true in moral, as it is in mechanical science. It is true,
not only in the draught, but in the race. These riders of the great, in
effect, hold the reins which guide them in their course, and wear the
spur that stimulates them to the goals of honour and of safety. The
great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none
will long submit to the dominion of the great.
"Dis te minorem quod geris imperas."
This is the feudal tenure which they cannot alter.