on, are to be censured,
watched, and, if possible, repressed.

At what distance the direct danger from such factions may be it is not
easy to fix. An adaptation of circumstances to designs and principles is
necessary. But these cannot be wanting for any long time, in the
ordinary course of sublunary affairs. Great discontents frequently arise
in the best constituted governments from causes which no human wisdom
can foresee and no human power can prevent. They occur at uncertain
periods, but at periods which are not commonly far asunder. Governments
of all kinds are administered only by men; and great mistakes, tending
to inflame these discontents, may concur. The indecision of those who
happen to rule at the critical time, their supine neglect, or their
precipitate and ill-judged attention, may aggravate the public
misfortunes. In such a state of things, the principles, now only sown,
will shoot out and vegetate in full luxuriance. In such circumstances
the minds of the people become sore and ulcerated. They are put out of
humor with all public men and all public parties; they are fatigued
with their dissensions; they are irritated at their coalitions; they are
made easily to believe (what much pains are taken to make them believe)
that all oppositions are factious, and all courtiers base and servile.
From their disgust at men, they are soon led to quarrel with their frame
of government, which they presume gives nourishment to the vices, real
or supposed, of those who administer in it. Mistaking malignity for
sagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a good
administration of affairs, and come to think that all reformation
depends, not on a change of actors, but upon an alteration in the
machinery. Then will be felt the full effect of encouraging doctrines
which tend to make the citizens despise their Constitution. Then will be
felt the plenitude of the mischief of teaching the people to believe
that all ancient institutions are the results of ignorance, and that all
prescriptive government is in its nature usurpation. Then will be felt,
in all its energy, the danger of encouraging a spirit of litigation in
persons of that immature and imperfect state of knowledge which serves
to render them susceptible of doubts, but incapable of their solution.
Then will be felt, in all its aggravation, the pernicious consequence of
destroying all docility in the minds of those who are not formed for
finding their own way i