ountry as nothing but _carte blanche_, upon which he may scribble
whatever he pleases. A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may
wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good
patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the
most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to
preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my
standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception,
perilous in the execution.

There are moments in the fortune of states, when particular men are
called to make improvements by great mental exertion. In those moments,
even when they seem to enjoy the confidence of their prince and country,
and to be invested with full authority, they have not always apt
instruments. A politician, to do great things, looks for a _power_, what
our workmen call a _purchase_; and if he finds that power, in politics
as in mechanics, he cannot be at a loss to apply it. In the monastic
institutions, in my opinion, was found a great _power_ for the mechanism
of politic benevolence. There were revenues with a public direction;
there were men wholly set apart and dedicated to public purposes,
without any other than public ties and public principles,--men without
the possibility of converting the estate of the community into a private
fortune,--men denied to self-interests, whose avarice is for some
community,--men to whom personal poverty is honor, and implicit
obedience stands in the place of freedom. In vain shall a man look to
the possibility of making such things when he wants them. The winds blow
as they list. These institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they
are the instruments of wisdom. Wisdom cannot create materials; they are
the gifts of Nature or of chance; her pride is in the use. The perennial
existence of bodies corporate and their fortunes are things particularly
suited to a man who has long views,--who meditates designs that require
time in fashioning, and which propose duration when they are
accomplished. He is not deserving to rank high, or even to be mentioned
in the order of great statesmen, who, having obtained the command and
direction of such a power as existed in the wealth, the discipline, and
the habits of such corporations as those which you have rashly
destroyed, cannot find any way of converting it to the great and lasting
benefit of his country. On the view of this subject, a thousand uses
sugges