Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/48

 ¬because civil societies cannot be suddenly new- modelled with safety. — Their improvements, to be permanent, must be almost insensible, and growing out of the original systems, however imperfect they may have been. ¬" The rude forefathers of this people had for- tunately not then arrived at that state of political science which might perhaps have tempted them to a premature change of their govern- ment upon abstract principles — they looked only to their actual grievances. — They did not seek to abrogate the system which was the root of their ancient laws and institutions, but only to beat down usurpations, and to remedy de- fects. — They seem indeed to have discovered that there is a magnet in the civil as in the na- tural world to direct our course, though the latter was for ages afterwards unknown. The magnet of the civil world is a Representative Government, and at this auspicious period at- tracted like the natural one by iron, became fixed and immutable from the sword. ¬" The ¬