of the state, when it is not in my power to prevent the influence of
contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, and those innumerable
methods of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the hands of
the court, and which will be applied as long as these means of
corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have existence among
us. Our constitution stands on a nice equipoise, with steep precipices
and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing it from a dangerous
leaning towards one side, there may be a risk of oversetting it on the
other. Every project of a material change in a government so complicated
as ours, combined at the same time with external circumstances, still
more complicated, is a matter full of difficulties: in which a
considerate man will not be too ready to decide; a prudent man too ready
to undertake; or an honest man too ready to promise. They do not respect
the public nor themselves, who engage for more than they are sure that
they ought to attempt, or that they are able to perform.


TAXATION INVOLVES PRINCIPLE.

No man ever doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an imposition
of threepence. But no commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a
penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions
of people are resolved not to pay. The feelings of the colonies were
formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs were formerly the
feelings of Mr. Hampden when called upon for the payment of twenty
shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune? No!
but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was
demanded, would have made him a slave.