Divine wisdom intended to secure the power of a
human connection, it forbade divorce. Political ties cannot admit this
inviolability; but if they are not strongly knit, if the contracting
parties are not firmly resolved to break them only in the last extremity
and under the most imperious pressure, they soon end, not only in
impotence, but in disorder; and by their too easy rupture, policy
becomes exposed to new difficulties and disturbances. I have thus
pointed out the discrepancies and different opinions which, from the
beginning, existed between the two principal elements of the centre: the
Ministers, with their pure adherents, on the one side, and the
doctrinarians on the other. From the second session after the decree of
the 5th of September, 1816, these differences increased until they grew
into dissensions.

While acknowledging the influence of the doctrinarians in the Chambers,
and the importance of their co-operation, neither the Ministers nor
their advocates measured correctly the value of this alliance, or the
weight of the foundation from which that value was derived. Philosophers
estimate too highly the general ideas with which they are prepossessed;
politicians withhold from general ideas the attention and interest they
are entitled to demand. Intelligence is proud and sensitive; it looks
for consideration and respect, even though its suggestions may be
disallowed; and those who treat it lightly or coldly sometimes pay
heavily for their mistake. It is, moreover, an evidence of narrow
intellect not to appreciate the part which general principles assume in
the government of men, or to regard them as useless or hostile because
we are not disposed to adopt them as guides. In our days, especially,
and notwithstanding the well-merited disrepute into which so many
theories have fallen, philosophic deduction, on all the leading
questions and facts of policy, is a sustaining power, on which the
ablest and most secure ministers would do wisely to rely. The
doctrinarians at that period represented this power, and employed it
fearlessly against the spirit of revolution, as well as in favour of the
constitutional system. The Cabinet of 1816 undervalued the part they
played, and paid too little attention to their ideas and desires. The
application of trial by jury to offences of the press was not, I admit,
unattended by danger; but it was much better to try that experiment, and
by so doing to maintain union in the Gove