History
informs us, likewise, of the difficulties with which these celebrated
reformers had to contend, as well as the expedients which they were
obliged to employ in order to carry their reforms into effect. Solon,
who seems to have indulged a more temporizing policy, confessed that he
had not given to his countrymen the government best suited to their
happiness, but most tolerable to their prejudices. And Lycurgus, more
true to his object, was under the necessity of mixing a portion of
violence with the authority of superstition, and of securing his final
success by a voluntary renunciation, first of his country, and then of
his life. If these lessons teach us, on one hand, to admire the
improvement made by America on the ancient mode of preparing and
establishing regular plans of government, they serve not less, on the
other, to admonish us of the hazards and difficulties incident to such
experiments, and of the great imprudence of unnecessarily multiplying
them.
Is it an unreasonable conjecture, that the errors which may be contained
in the plan of the convention are such as have resulted rather from the
defect of antecedent experience on this complicated and difficult
subject, than from a want of accuracy or care in the investigation of
it; and, consequently such as will not be ascertained until an actual
trial shall have pointed them out? This conjecture is rendered probable,
not only by many considerations of a general nature, but by the
particular case of the Articles of Confederation.
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