What has not
America lost by her want of character with foreign nations; and how many
errors and follies would she not have avoided, if the justice and
propriety of her measures had, in every instance, been previously tried
by the light in which they would probably appear to the unbiased part of
mankind?
Yet however requisite a sense of national character may be, it is
evident that it can never be sufficiently possessed by a numerous and
changeable body. It can only be found in a number so small that a
sensible degree of the praise and blame of public measures may be the
portion of each individual; or in an assembly so durably invested with
public trust, that the pride and consequence of its members may be
sensibly incorporated with the reputation and prosperity of the
community. The half-yearly representatives of Rhode Island would
probably have been little affected in their deliberations on the
iniquitous measures of that State, by arguments drawn from the light in
which such measures would be viewed by foreign nations, or even by the
sister States; whilst it can scarcely be doubted that if the concurrence
of a select and stable body had been necessary, a regard to national
character alone would have prevented the calamities under which that
misguided people is now laboring.
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