ven an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land.
I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have
reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the
tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review
the acts and position of the general and State governments,
and the spirit of the people to discover a pretext for conformity.

"We must affect our country as our parents,
And if at any time we alienate
Our love or industry from doing it honor,
We must respect effects and teach the soul
Matter of conscience and religion,
And not desire of rule or benefit."

I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my
work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no
better patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower
point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is
very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even
this State and this American government are, in many
respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful
for, such as a great many have described them; seen from a
higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are,
or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?

However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall
bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many
moments that I live under a government, even in this world.
If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free,
that which _is not_ never for a long time appearing _to be_
to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.

I know that most men think differently from myself; but
those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of
these or kindred subjects content me as little as any.
Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the
institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it.
They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place
without it. They may be men of a certain experience and
discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and
even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them;
but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very
wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not
governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind
government, and so cannot speak with authority about it.
His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no
essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers,
and those who