not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately;
you quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put
your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as
not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider
that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men,
and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is
possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them,
and, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put my head
deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker
of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself
that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to
treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my
requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then,
like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be
satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And,
above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a
purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some
effect; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the
rocks and trees and beasts.

  I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to
split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better
than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for
conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to
them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each
year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to
review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and
the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity.

        "We must affect our country as our parents,

         And if at any time we alienate

         Our love or industry from doing it honor,

         We must respect effects and teach the soul

         Matter of conscience and religion,

         And not desire of rule or benefit."

I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this
sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a patriot than
my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the
Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the
courts are very respectable; even this State and this American
government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things,
to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen
from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described
them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what
they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?

  However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow
the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live
under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free,
fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long
time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally
interrupt him.

  I know that most men think differently from myself; but those
whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred
subjects content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators,
standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and
nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no
resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience
and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even
useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit
and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are
wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and
expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot
speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those
legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing
government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he
never once glances at the subject. I know of those whose serene and
wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his
mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions
of most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of
politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and
valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is
always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality
is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but
consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony
with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice
that may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as
he has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really
no blows to be given by him but defensive ones. He is not a leader,
but a follower. His leaders are the men of '87- "I have never made
an effort," he says, "and never propose to make an effort; I have
never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort,
to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which the various
States came into the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which
the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it was a part
of the original compact- let it stand." Notwithstanding his special
acuteness and ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely
political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be
disposed of by the intellect- what, for instance, it behooves a man to
do here in America today with regard to slavery- but ventures, or is
driven, to make some such desperate answer as the following, while
professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man- from which
what new and singular code of social duties might be inferred? "The