themselves; and while they reason for their country, forget the
considerations that most deserve their attention. Numbers, riches, and the
other resources of war, are highly important: but nations consist of men;
and a nation consisting of degenerate and cowardly men, is weak; a nation
consisting of vigorous, public spirited, and resolute men, is strong. The
resources of war, where other advantages are equal, may decide a contest;
but the resources of war, in hands that cannot employ them, are of no
avail.

Virtue is a necessary constituent of national strength: capacity, and a
vigorous understanding, are no less necessary to sustain the fortune of
states. Both are improved by discipline, and by the exercises in which men
are engaged. We despise, or we pity the lot of mankind, while they lived
under uncertain establishments, and were obliged to sustain in the same
person, the character of the senator, the statesman, and the soldier.
Commercial nations discover, that any one of these characters is sufficient
in one person; and that the ends of each, when disjoined, are more easily
accomplished. The first, however, were circumstances under which nations
advanced and prospered; the second were those in which the spirit relaxed,
and the nation went to decay.

We may, with good reason, congratulate our species on their having escaped
from a state of barbarous disorder and violence, into a state of domestic
peace and regular policy; when they have sheathed the dagger, and disarmed
the animosities of civil contention; when the weapons with which they
contend are the reasonings of the wise, and the tongue of the eloquent. But
we cannot, mean time, help to regret, that they should ever proceed, in
search of perfection, to place every branch of administration behind the
counter, and come to employ, instead of the statesman and warrior, the mere
clerk and accountant.