WILLIAM SMYTH

Sir Henry Clinton used every expedient to bring them over to the British army, but in vain. Washington and the congress, luckily for America, being more considerate than generals and legislators on such occasions commonly are, adopted mild measures; the army was not dissolved, and the revolt was quieted.

Extremes can be right on no side.

The ministers and people of England might neither mean to be, nor be, the tyrants and oppressors which they were thought by the people of America, but whether they were as reasonable and prudent, or even as well justified in their measures of taxation, much less of coercion, as they supposed, is quite another question.

The wisdom, the duty of mild government I conceive to be the great but disregarded lesson of all history.

Eloquence and wisdom are by no means the same thing. They are sometimes united, but not necessarily ; perhaps never when eloquence is the mere gift of nature rather than the slow result of nature and art conjoined. A ready supply of glittering language and an ardent conception, i. e. a fertile imagination, and quick feelings, united to a retentive memory—these are together quite sufficient to make an orator, but by no means to make a wise man; to make a speaker or even a leader in a popular assembly, but not necessarily a statesman.

Give civil and religious liberty, you give everything—knowledge and science, heroism and honor, virtue and power ; deny them, and you deny everything

The interest of connected nations cannot be entirely reconciled, nor their separate wishes be gratified. Nations must often be reduced to compound with evils, and at last to make such sacrifices as are necessarily accompanied with mortification and regret; but it is for political wisdom to encounter and reconcile men to these evils, to proclaim aloud that on these occasions nothing has happened at variance with the common necessities of our imperfect state. The misfortune is, that nations can never submit to the circumstances of their situation in time, or with any grace or good humor.

Men must also be allowed the publication of their opinions, if this be done with decency and seriousness, for the learned can have no right to say that they are in possession of the truth, still less can the unlearned, unless every grave man can offer his opinions, be they what they may…

… toleration is the best and only policy; … it is best to suffer colonies or inferior nations to retain their own particular creeds and rites and ceremonies in religion, and their own particular modes of administering justice in civil or criminal matters; that improvements may be proposed to them, but not enforced; that till they can be properly enlightened, they must be left to indulge their own particular notions.

It seems eternally forgotten, that men, in their collective capacity as nations, may be, and often are, guilty of the same follies, faults, and crimes, that they can commit as individuals in the common relations of social life; that they may be just as ill-humored, or resentful, or unreasonable, or ferocious, or wicked; that their good or bad passions enter with them into cabinets, and senates, and public meetings, just as they do into drawing-rooms, or studies, or their family dining-rooms.

Eloquence and wisdom are by no means the same thing. They are sometimes united, but not necessarily ; perhaps never when eloquence is the mere gift of nature rather than the slow result of nature and art conjoined. A ready supply of glittering language and an ardent conception, i. e. a fertile imagination, and quick feelings, united to a retentive memory—these are together quite sufficient to make an orator, but by no means to make a wise man; to make a speaker or even a leader in a popular assembly, but not necessarily a statesman.

The interest of connected nations cannot be entirely reconciled, nor their separate wishes be gratified. Nations must often be reduced to compound with evils, and at last to make such sacrifices as are necessarily accompanied with mortification and regret; but it is for political wisdom to encounter and reconcile men to these evils, to proclaim aloud that on these occasions nothing has happened at variance with the common necessities of our imperfect state. The misfortune is, that nations can never submit to the circumstances of their situation in time, or with any grace or good humor.

We contend against reason, philosophy, and nature itself; forget the great rule of doing to others as we would they should do unto us ; and after wasting our blood and treasure to no purpose, we at last sit down faint and exhausted, abandon our vain projects only because it is impossible to pursue them, and then leave it to the reasoners of a succeeding age to show how egregious has been our folly, and how blind our fury.

… toleration is the best and only policy; … it is best to suffer colonies or inferior nations to retain their own particular creeds and rites and ceremonies in religion, and their own particular modes of administering justice in civil or criminal matters; that improvements may be proposed to them, but not enforced; that till they can be properly enlightened, they must be left to indulge their own particular notions.

The ministers and people of England might neither mean to be, nor be, the tyrants and oppressors which they were thought by the people of America, but whether they were as reasonable and prudent, or even as well justified in their measures of taxation, much less of coercion, as they supposed, is quite another question.

There was a general notion in the English people that their cause was just. The sovereignty was supposed to be in the parent state; in the rights of sovereignty were included the rights of taxation: England, too, was considered as having protected the Americans from the French in the war that had been lately concluded. The Americans, therefore, when they resisted the mother country in her attempt to tax them, were considered on the first account as rebellious, and on the second as ungrateful

It seems eternally forgotten, that men, in their collective capacity as nations, may be, and often are, guilty of the same follies, faults, and crimes, that they can commit as individuals in the common relations of social life; that they may be just as ill-humored, or resentful, or unreasonable, or ferocious, or wicked; that their good or bad passions enter with them into cabinets, and senates, and public meetings, just as they do into drawing-rooms, or studies, or their family dining-rooms.

What public men, whether in or out of office, must avoid, is the making of predictions. This is what is called, in their own language, " committing themselves," and is never done without the greatest caution and necessity; and, therefore, whenever public men choose to put themselves at issue with the ministers, and hazard predictions, they become from that moment entitled to the praise of superior wisdom or not, just as their expectations are or are not verified by the event.

Nations, like individuals, never condescend to stop and examine how far the arguments and feelings of their opponents may be reasonable and just; and it follows from hence, that men of rank and influence in our community can never be better employed than in prevailing on their countrymen to pause and reflect: to remember that in every quarrel there must necessarily be two sides, and that it would be a marvelous circumstance indeed, if the one side, i. e. themselves, were exclusively in the right.

The American War must immediately appear to you a subject of historical curiosity. By the event of that war, an independent empire has arisen, boundless in extent, and removed from the reach of the arms---secure at least from the invasions of Europe; beginning its career with such ad-vantages as our communities in the old world never possessed; beginning almost from the point to which they have but arrived in the progress of nearly two thousand years.

For it is always to be remembered that it is the spirit with which a constitution is in practice administered, that is the great point of consequence, far more than the letter of the law

Men must also be allowed the publication of their opinions, if this be done with decency and seriousness, for the learned can have no right to say that they are in possession of the truth, still less can the unlearned, unless every grave man can offer his opinions, be they what they may…

It is impossible for either nations or individuals, in the management of a dispute, to have the benefit of two opposite chances. They may be, from the first, moderate, pacific, magnanimous; they will thus secure certain advantages, and they will lose possible advantages. They may, on the contrary, be haughty, warlike, and selfish ; their chances and advantages will then be the reverse of the former. It is impossible to unite the two.

Lord North, after the affair at Saratoga, from the beginning of the year 1778, made every effort to procure from the king permission to resign. These efforts were continually repeated for a long period, but in vain : the king could not give up the idea of coercing America, and therefore could not part with the only man who was, he thought, fit to manage the House of Commons.

The wisdom, the duty of mild government I conceive to be the great but disregarded lesson of all history.

Freedom must be enjoyed and men must not lose their nature, and be driven by their keepers like the beasts of the field, but neither must they be so enamored of self-rule as to admit of no paramount directors and governors. The public rights and privileges for which they should contend are not the power of self-rule, nor even the immediate and palpable direction of the measures of their government, the great aim and boast of purely republican forma; but the privileges of peaceful criticism on their government, the power of subsequent censure, the acknowledgment in the rulers of a delegated, rather than an original authority, and a reference of their measures to the interest of the community. These are the points for which they should contend, the points which, as a government is more or less perfect, are more or less accomplished and secured.

Sir Henry Clinton used every expedient to bring them over to the British army, but in vain. Washington and the congress, luckily for America, being more considerate than generals and legislators on such occasions commonly are, adopted mild measures; the army was not dissolved, and the revolt was quieted.

I hold to be of itself a lesson for all those who love liberty, and who would extend its blessings to their country. Men are not to be pedants in liberty, any more than in virtue. Though they are not to be oppressed by tyrants, they must at least be governed by their fellow-men. The great principles of independence in the heart of man are to be cherished and upheld; but order, prosperity, the purposes of society, must be accomplished. The many must delegate the government of themselves to the few. Control, executive power, must be lodged somewhere …

The lamentations of good men on the subject of party are vain; parties are inseparable from every free government; and you must either have parties with all their good and bad effects, or no freedom of thought or speech, as in Turkey, or any other state where parties are not to be found.

The plaudits of his country were continually sounding in his ears, and neither the judgment nor the virtues of the man were ever disturbed. Armies were led to the field with all the enterprise of a hero, and then dismissed with all the equanimity of a philosopher. Power was accepted, was exercised, was resigned, precisely at the moment and in the way that duty and patriotism directed. Whatever was the difficulty, the trial, the temptation, or the danger, there stood the soldier and the citizen, eternally the same, without fear, and without reproach, and there was the man who was not only at all times virtuous but at all times wise

Extremes can be right on no side.

Give civil and religious liberty, you give everything—knowledge and science, heroism and honor, virtue and power ; deny them, and you deny everything

Monopolies—the worst of all taxes.