o the
Quaker character, is, that in all those cases, which may be called
political, the Quakers generally reason upon principle, and but seldom
upon consequences.

I do not know of any trait, which ever impressed me more than this in
all my intercourse with the members of this society. It was one of those
which obtruded itself to my notice on my first acquaintance with them,
and it has continued equally conspicuous to the present time.

If an impartial philosopher, from some unknown land, and to whom our
manners, and opinions, and history, were unknown, were introduced
suddenly into our metropolis, and were to converse with the Quakers
there on a given political subject, and to be directly afterwards
conveyed to the west end of the town, and there to converse with
politicians, or men of fashion, or men of the world, upon the same, he
could not fail to be greatly surprised. If he thought the former wise,
or virtuous, or great, he would unavoidably consider the latter as
foolish, or vicious, or little. Two such opposite conclusions, as he
would hear deduced from the reasonings of each, would impress him with
an idea, that he had been taken to a country inhabited by two different
races of men. He would never conceive, that they had been educated in
the same country, or under the same government. If left to himself, he
would probably imagine, that they had embraced two different religions.
But if he were told that they professed the same, he would then say,
that the precepts of this religion had been expressed in such doubtful
language, that they led to two sets of principles contradictory to one
another. I need scarcely inform the reader, that I allude to the two
opposite conclusions, which will almost always be drawn, where men
reason from motives of policy or from moral right.

If it be true that the Quakers reason upon principle in political
affairs, and not upon consequences, it will follow as a direct
inference, that they will adopt the Christian maxim, that men ought not
to do evil that good may come. And this is indeed the maxim, which you
find them adopting in the course of their conversation on such subjects,
and which I believe they would have uniformly adopted, if they had been
placed in political situations in life. Had the Quakers been the
legislators of the world, we should never have seen many of the public
evils that have appeared in it. It was thought formerly, for example, a
glorious thing to attempt t