The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the “all-atoning name” of Liberty.  In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.  But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?  It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.  Those who know what virtuous liberty is cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.  Grand, swelling sentiments of liberty I am sure I do not despise.  They warm the heart; they enlarge and liberalize our minds; they animate our courage in a time of conflict.  Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of Lucan and Corneille with pleasure.  Neither do I wholly condemn the little arts and devices of popularity.  They facilitate the carrying of many points of moment; they keep the people together; they refresh the mind in its exertions; and they diffuse occasional gayety over the severe brow of moral freedom.  Every politician ought to sacrifice to the Graces, and to join compliance with reason.  But in such an undertaking as that in France all these subsidiary sentiments and artifices are of little avail.  To make a government requires no great prudence.  Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the work is done.  To give freedom is still more easy.  It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein.  But to form a free government, that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.  This I do not find in those who take the lead in the National Assembly.  Perhaps they are not so miserably deficient as they appear.  I rather believe it.  It would put them below the common level of human understanding.  But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.  They will become flatterers instead of legislators,—­the instruments, not the guides of the people.  If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.  Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause.  Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors,—­until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines and establishing powers that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.

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