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And, as there must be in every society of men something of evil that can
be traced to the government, and something of good neglected that a wise
and efficient government might have accomplished, it is easy to build up
an argument against an existing government, however good when compared
with others. This is a narrow, superficial, unsatisfactory, dangerous
view to take of public affairs.
We should seek to comprehend the relations of the government, the
principles on which it is founded; and, while we justly complain of its
defects, and seek to remedy them, we ought also to compare it with other
systems that exist, or that might be established. This proposition
involves an intelligent realization by the people of the character of
their institutions; and I am thus led to express the apprehension that
the popular political education of our day is inferior to that of the
revolutionary era, and of the age that immediately succeeded it.
There is, no doubt, a disposition and a tendency to extol the recent
past. The recollections of childhood are quite at variance with the real
truth, and tradition is often the dream of old age concerning the
events of early life. As rivers, hills, mountains, roads, and towns, are
all magnified by the visions of childhood, it is not strange that men
should be also. Hence comes, in part, the popular belief in the superior
physical strength and greater longevity of the people who lived fifty or
a hundred years ago.
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