he duties of their respective stations; it
ceases when they affect to become legislators; when they intrude
themselves into concerns for which their education has not fitted them.
The liberty of the press is a main support of the liberty of the nation;
it is a blessing which it is our duty to transmit to posterity; but a
bad use is sometimes made of it: and its use is never more pernicious
than when it is employed to infuse into the minds of the lowest orders
of the community disparaging ideas concerning the constitution of their
country. No danger need be apprehended from a candid examination of our
own constitution, or from a display of the advantages of any other; it
will bear to be contrasted with the best: but all men are not qualified
to make the comparison; and there are so many men, in every community,
who wish to have no government at all, that an appeal to them on such a
point ought never to be made.

There are, probably, in every government upon earth, circumstances which
a man, accustomed to the abstract investigation of truth, may easily
prove to be deviations from the rigid rule of strict political justice;
but whilst these deviations are either generally not known, or, though
known, generally acquiesced in as matters of little moment to the
general felicity, I cannot think it to be the part, either of a good man
or of a good citizen, to be zealous in recommending such matters to the
discussion of ignorant and uneducated men.

I am far from insinuating, that the science of politics is involved in
mystery; or that men of plain understandings should be debarred from
examining the principles of the government to which they yield
obedience. All that I contend for is this--that the foundations of our
government ought not to be overturned, nor the edifice erected thereon
tumbled into ruins, because an acute politician may pretend that he has
discovered a flaw in the building, or that he could have laid the
foundation after a better model.

What would you say to a stranger who should desire you to pull down
your house, because, forsooth, he had built one in France or America,
after what he thought a better plan? You would say to him: No, sir--my
ancestors have lived in this mansion comfortably and honourably for many
generations; all its walls are strong, and all its timbers sound: if I
should observe a decay in any of its parts, I know how to make the
reparation without the assistance of strangers; and I know