Thus, by preserving the method of nature in
the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new;
in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this
manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by
the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic
analogy. In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of
polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of
our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental
laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and
cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected
charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.
Through the same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial
institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful
instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason,
we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from
considering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. Always acting
as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom,
leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful
gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of
habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost
inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers
of any distinction.
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