ings have brought us
into our present condition think it absurd that powers or members of any
constitution should exist, rarely, if ever, to be exercised, I hope I
shall be excused in mentioning another instance that is material. We
know that the Convocation of the Clergy had formerly been called, and
sat with nearly as much regularity to business as Parliament itself. It
is now called for form only. It sits for the purpose of making some
polite ecclesiastical compliments to the king, and, when that grace is
said, retires and is heard of no more. It is, however, _a part of the
Constitution_, and may be called out into act and energy, whenever there
is occasion, and whenever those who conjure up that spirit will choose
to abide the consequences. It is wise to permit its legal existence: it
is much wiser to continue it a legal existence only. So truly has
prudence (constituted as the god of this lower world) the entire
dominion over every exercise of power committed into its hands! And yet
I have lived to see prudence and conformity to circumstances wholly set
at nought in our late controversies, and treated as if they were the
most contemptible and irrational of all things. I have heard it an
hundred times very gravely alleged, that, in order to keep power in
wind, it was necessary, by preference, to exert it in those very points
in which it was most likely to be resisted and the least likely to be
productive of any advantage.

These were the considerations, Gentlemen, which led me early to think,
that, in the comprehensive dominion which the Divine Providence had put
into our hands, instead of troubling our understandings with
speculations concerning the unity of empire and the identity or
distinction of legislative powers, and inflaming our passions with the
heat and pride of controversy, it was our duty, in all soberness, to
conform our government to the character and circumstances of the several
people who composed this mighty and strangely diversified mass. I never
was wild enough to conceive that one method would serve for the whole,
that the natives of Hindostan and those of Virginia could be ordered in
the same manner, or that the Cutchery court and the grand jury of Salem
could be regulated on a similar plan. I was persuaded that government
was a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind, and not to
furnish out a spectacle of uniformity to gratify the schemes of
visionary politicians. Our business was t