tached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of my country;
but I am a republican without gall, and have no bitterness in my
creed. I have no relish for puritans either in religion or politics,
who are for pushing principles to an extreme, and for overturning
everything that stands in the way of their own zealous career. I have,
therefore, felt a strong distaste for some of those loco-foco
luminaries who of late have been urging strong and sweeping measures,
subversive of the interests of great classes of the community. Their
doctrines may be excellent in theory, but, if enforced in violent and
uncompromising opposition to all our habitudes, may produce the most
distressing effects. The best of remedies must be cautiously applied,
and suited to the state and constitution of the patient; otherwise,
what is intended to cure, may produce convulsion. The late elections
have shown that the measures proposed by Government are repugnant to
the feelings and habitudes or disastrous to the interests of great
portions of our fellow citizens. They should not, then, be forced home
with rigor. Ours is a government of compromise. We have several great
and distinct interests bound up together, which, if not separately
consulted and severally accommodated, may harass and impair each
other. A stern, inflexible, and uniform policy may do for a small
compact republic, like one of those of ancient Greece, where there is
a unity of character, habits, and interests; but a more accommodating,
discriminating, and variable policy must be observed in a vast
republic like ours, formed of a variety of states widely differing in
habits, pursuits, characters, and climes, and banded together by a few
general ties.

"I always distrust the soundness of political councils that are
accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging attacks upon any great
class of our fellow citizens. Such are those urged to the disadvantage
of the great trading and financial classes of our country. You
yourself know, from education and experience, how important these
classes are to the prosperous conduct of the complicated affairs of
this immense empire. You yourself know, in spite of all the
commonplace cant and obloquy that has been cast upon them by political
spouters and scribblers, what general good faith and fair dealing
prevails throughout these classes."

At this time he was studying with increasing interest the shifting
spectacle of American life. The openings