The mere notion
that government, being a necessary evil, is to be reduced to the
minimum that will answer the purposes of government, saves from many
false steps. The doctrine that the central government is to confine
itself to the duties assigned it in the Constitution, is a guiding
principle suited to the limited human mind. A vast number of claims,
suggestions, and petitions are excluded by it even from consideration.
If an eloquent Hamiltonian proposes to appropriate the public money
for the purpose of enabling American manufacturers to exhibit their
products at a Paris Exhibition, the plainest country member of the
Jeffersonian school perceives at once the inconsistency of such a
proposition with the fundamental principle of his political creed. He
has a compass to steer by, and a port to sail to, instead of being
afloat on the waste of waters, the sport of every breeze that blows.
It is touching to observe that this unhappy, sick, and sometimes mad
John Randolph, amid all the vagaries of his later life, had always a
vein of soundness in him, derived from his early connection with the
enlightened men who acted in politics with Thomas Jefferson.
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