the latter source of weakness,—­this inability as caused by decay in the machine of government, and by illegitimate forces which are checking and controuling its constitutional motions,—­I have not spoken, nor shall I now speak:  for I have judged it best to suspend my task for a while:  and this subject, being in its nature delicate, ought not to be lightly or transiently touched.  Besides, no immediate effect can be expected from the soundest and most unexceptionable doctrines which might be laid down for the correcting of this evil.—­The former source of weakness,—­namely, the want of appropriate and indispensible knowledge,—­has, in the past investigation, been reached, and shall be further laid open; not without a hope of some result of immediate good by a direct application to the mind; and in full confidence that the best and surest way to render operative that knowledge which is already possessed—­is to increase the stock of knowledge.

Here let me avow that I undertook this present labour as a serious duty; rather, that it was forced (and has been unremittingly pressed) upon me by a perception of justice united with strength of feeling;—­in a word, by that power of conscience, calm or impassioned, to which throughout I have done reverence as the animating spirit of the cause.  My work was begun and prosecuted under this controul:—­and with the accompanying satisfaction that no charge of presumption could, by a thinking mind, be brought against me:  though I had taken upon myself to offer instruction to men who, if they possess not talents and acquirements, have no title to the high stations which they hold; who also, by holding those stations, are understood to obtain certain benefit of experience and of knowledge not otherwise to be gained; and who have a further claim to deference—­founded upon reputation, even when it is spurious (as much of the reputation of men high in power must necessarily be; their errors being veiled and palliated by the authority attached to their office; while that same authority gives more than due weight and effect to their wiser opinions).  Yet, notwithstanding all this, I did not fear the censure of having unbecomingly obtruded counsels or remonstrances.  For there can be no presumption, upon a call so affecting as the present, in an attempt to assert the sanctity and to display the efficacy of principles and passions which are the natural birth-right of man; to some share of which all are born; but an inheritance which may be alienated or consumed; and by none more readily and assuredly than by those who are most eager for the praise of policy, of prudence, of sagacity, and of all those qualities which are the darling virtues of the worldly-wise.  Moreover; the evidence to which I have made appeal, in order to establish the truth, is not locked up in cabinets; but is accessible to all; as it exists in the bosoms of men—­in the appearances and intercourse of daily life—­in the details of passing