derstandings: they are endeavoring to tear up, along with
practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity and
justice, religion and order.

Civil freedom, Gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavored to persuade
you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a
blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just
reasoning that can be upon it is of so coarse a texture as perfectly to
suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who
are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in
geometry and metaphysics which admit no medium, but must be true or
false in all their latitude, social and civil freedom, like all other
things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very
different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms,
according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The
_extreme_ of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real
fault) obtains nowhere, nor ought to obtain anywhere; because extremes,
as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or
satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment.
Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of
restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought
to be the constant aim of every wise public counsel to find out by
cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavors, with how little, not
how much, of this restraint the community can subsist: for liberty is a
good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a
private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of
the state itself, which has just so much life and vigor as there is
liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not, (for I know
it is a fashion to decry the very principle,) none will dispute that
peace is a blessing; and peace must, in the course of human affairs, be
frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty:
for, as the Sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or
authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies
of the time, and the temper and character of the people with whom it is
concerned, and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to
their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind, on