public business are related to, or dependent on, some great,
_leading_, _general principles in government_, a man must be peculiarly
unfortunate in the choice of his political company, if he does not agree
with them at least nine times in ten. If he does not concur in these
general principles upon which the party is founded, and which
necessarily draw on a concurrence in their application, he ought from
the beginning to have chosen some other, more conformable to his
opinions. When the question is in its nature doubtful, or not very
material, the modesty which becomes an individual, and, (in spite of our
court moralists) that partiality which becomes a well-chosen friendship,
will frequently bring on an acquiescence in the general sentiment. Thus
the disagreement will naturally be rare; it will be only enough to
indulge freedom, without violating concord, or disturbing arrangement.
And this is all that ever was required for a character of the greatest
uniformity and steadiness in connection. How men can proceed without any
connection at all, is to me utterly incomprehensible. Of what sort of
materials must that man be made, how must he be tempered and put
together, who can sit whole years in Parliament, with five hundred and
fifty of his fellow-citizens, amidst the storm of such tempestuous
passions, in the sharp conflict of so many wits, and tempers, and
characters, in the agitation of such mighty questions, in the discussion
of such vast and ponderous interests, without seeing any one sort of
men, whose character, conduct, or disposition, would lead him to
associate himself with them, to aid and be aided, in any one system of
public utility?

I remember an old scholastic aphorism, which says, "that the man who
lives wholly detached from others, must be either an angel or a devil."
When I see in any of these detached gentlemen of our times the angelic
purity, power, and beneficence, I shall admit them to be angels. In the
mean time we are born only to be men. We shall do enough if we form
ourselves to be good ones. It is therefore our business carefully to
cultivate in our minds, to rear to the most perfect vigor and maturity,
every sort of generous and honest feeling, that belongs to our nature.
To bring the dispositions that are lovely in private life into the
service and conduct of the commonwealth; so to be patriots, as not to
forget we are gentlemen. To cultivate friendships, and to incur
enmities. To have both st