No man, who is not inflamed by
vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single,
unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to defeat
the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men
combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an
unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man
means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he
never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and
even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be
prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and
ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and
disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That
duty demands and requires, that what is right should not only be made
known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be
detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in a
situation of doing his duty with effect, it is an omission that
frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as if he had
formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational account of a man's
life, that he has always acted right; but has taken special care, to act
in such a manner that his endeavors could not possibly be productive of
any consequence.

I do not wonder that the behavior of many parties should have made
persons of tender and scrupulous virtue somewhat out of humor with all
sorts of connection in politics. I admit that people frequently acquire
in such confederacies a narrow, bigoted, and prescriptive spirit; that
they are apt to sink the idea of the general good in this circumscribed
and partial interest. But, where duty renders a critical situation a
necessary one, it is our business to keep free from the evils attendant
upon it; and not to fly from the situation itself. If a fortress is
seated in an unwholesome air, an officer of the garrison is obliged to
be attentive to his health, but he must not desert his station. Every
profession, not excepting the glorious one of a soldier, or the sacred
one of a priest, is liable to its own particular vices; which, however,
form no argument against those ways of life; nor are the vices
themselves inevitable to every individual in those professions. Of such
a nature are connections in politics; essentially necessary for the full
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