Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/203

 CH. X.] advantage to the sagacious, the cunning and the monied capitalists. Every new regulation concerning commerce, or revenue, or manufactures, or agriculture, or in any manner affecting the relative value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those, who watch the change, and can trace the consequences; a harvest, which is torn from the hand of the honest labourer, or the confiding artisan, to enrich those, who coolly look on to reap profit, where they have sown nothing. In short, such a state of things generates the worst passions of selfishness, and the worst spirit of gaming. However paradoxical it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that in affairs of government, the best measures, to be safe, must be slowly introduced; and the wisest councils are those, which proceed by steps, and reach, circuitously, their conclusion. It is, then, important in this general view, that all the public functionaries should not terminate their offices at the same period. The gradual infusion of new elements, which may mingle with the old, secures a gradual renovation, and a permanent union of the whole.

§ 714. But the ill effects of a mutable government are still more strongly felt in the intercourse with foreign nations. It forfeits the respect and confidence of foreign nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. It not only lays its measures open to the silent operations of foreign intrigue and management; but it subjects its whole policy to be counteracted by the wiser and more stable policy of its foreign rivals and adversaries. One nation is to another, what one individual is to another, with this