COMBINATION, NOT FACTION.
That connection and faction are equivalent terms, is an opinion which
has been carefully inculcated at all times by unconstitutional
statesmen. The reason is evident. Whilst men are linked together, they
easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are
enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united
strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or
discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and
resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other's
principles, nor experienced in each other's talents, nor at all
practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in
business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest,
subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a
public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection,
the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has
his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly
unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory
into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported,
desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle
designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens.
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