It is no excuse at all for a minister, who at our desire takes a measure
contrary to our safety, that it is our own act. He who does not stay
the hand of suicide, is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that to
be instructed, is not to be degraded or enslaved. Information is an
advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it. He that is bound to
act in the dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears evident to
our governors that our desires and our interests are at variance, they
ought not to gratify the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen
are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than
we can possibly command. They have a whole before them, which we
can contemplate only in the parts, and often without the necessary
relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers but our natural
guides. Reason clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty
force: but reason in the mouth of legal authority, is, I may fairly
say, irresistible. I admit that reason of state will not, in many
circumstances, permit the disclosure of the true ground of a public
proceeding. In that case silence is manly and it is wise. It is fair to
call for trust when the principle of reason itself suspends its public
use. I take the distinction to be this: The ground of a particular
measure, making a part of a plan, it is rarely proper to divulge;
all the broader grounds of policy, on which the general plan is to be
adopted, ought as rarely to be concealed. They, who have not the whole
cause before them, call them politicians, call them people, call them
what you will, are no judges. The difficulties of the case, as well as
its fair side, ought to be presented. This ought to be done; and it
is all that can be done. When we have our true situation distinctly
presented to us, if then we resolve, with a blind and headlong violence,
to resist the admonitions of our friends, and to cast ourselves into the
hands of our potent and irreconcilable foes, then, and not till then,
the ministers stand acquitted before God and man, for whatever may come.