But, in closing our remarks, it may be allowable to point out the political lesson which, above all others, the teachers of the masses should seek to inculcate on their pupils.  The art of government, and each measure of government, is, above all other things, the two-sided shield.  There are so many plausible arguments which may be advanced on each side of almost every question of policy, that no candid man will severely condemn him who in such disputable matters forms an opinion different from his own.  Age and experience are worse than valueless if they do not teach a man to think better of his kind; and the history of the period which we have been considering teaches no lesson more forcibly than this, that the great majority of educated men, and especially of our leading statesmen, are actuated by honest and patriotic motives.  And we would presume to urge that more important than a correct estimate of any one transaction of the past, or even of any one measure to influence the future, is the habit of putting a candid, and therefore a favorable, construction on the characters and intentions of those to whom from time to time the conduct of the affairs of the nation is intrusted.

Notes: 

[Footnote 276:  “Life of Palmerston,” vol. i., c. vii.]

[Footnote 277:  “Life of the Prince Consort,” ii, 303.]

[Footnote 278:  Ibid., p. 412.]

[Footnote 279:  Amos, “Fifty Years of the English Constitution,” p. 289.]

[Footnote 280:  “Past Gleanings,” i., 242.]

[Footnote 281:  “Life of the Prince Consort,” iv., 458.]

[Footnote 282:  219 to 210.]

[Footnote 283:  “Life of the Prince Consort,” v., 100.]

[Footnote 284:  Ibid., p. 148.]

[Footnote 285:  “Life of Pitt,” by Earl Stanhope, iii., 210.]

[Footnote 286:  “Life of the Prince Consort,” iv., 329.]

[Footnote 287:  Ibid., p. 366.]

[Footnote 288:  “Constitutional History,” iii., 319, 3d edition.]

[Footnote 289:  It should be added that, on a subsequent occasion, Mr. Roundell Palmer, member for Plymouth (now Lord Chancellor Selborne, and even then in the enjoyment of the highest professional reputation), declared his opinion to be in favor of the legality and constitutional propriety of the proceeding.]

[Footnote 290:  To illustrate this position, Lord Lyndhurst said:  “The sovereign may by his prerogative, if he thinks proper, create a hundred peers with descendible qualities in the course of a day.  That would be consistent with the prerogative, and would be perfectly legal; but everybody must feel, and everybody must know, that such an exercise of the undoubted prerogative of the crown would be a flagrant violation of the principles of the constitution.  In the same manner the sovereign might place the Great Seal in the hands of a layman wholly unacquainted with the laws of the country.  That also would