ion form their opinions on such
grounds as such persons ought to form them. The less inquiring receive
them from an authority which those whom Providence dooms to live on
trust need not be ashamed to rely on. These two sorts of men move in the
same direction, though in a different place. They both move with the
order of the universe. They all know or feel this great ancient
truth:--"_Quod illi principi et praepotenti Deo qui omnem hunc mundum
regit nihil eorum quae quidem fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et
coetus hominum jure sociati quae civitates appellantur_." They take this
tenet of the head and heart, not from the great name which it
immediately bears, nor from the greater from whence it is derived, but
from that which alone can give true weight and sanction to any learned
opinion, the common nature and common relation of men. Persuaded that
all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the
point of reference to which all should be directed, they think
themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart,
or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of
their high origin and cast, but also in their corporate character to
perform their national homage to the Institutor and Author and Protector
of civil society, without which civil society man could not by any
possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, nor
even make a remote and faint approach to it. They conceive that He who
gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue willed also the necessary
means of its perfection: He willed, therefore, the state: He willed its
connection with the source and original archetype of all perfection.
They who are convinced of this His will, which is the law of laws and
the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our
corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory
paramount, I had almost said this oblation of the state itself, as a
worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be
performed, as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in
music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to
the customs of mankind, taught by their nature,--that is, with modest
splendor, with unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp. For
those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as
usefully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of