The state of civil society which necessarily generates this aristocracy
is a state of Nature,--and much more truly so than a savage and
incoherent mode of life. For man is by nature reasonable; and he is
never perfectly in his natural state, but when he is placed where reason
may be best cultivated and most predominates. Art is man's nature. We
are as much, at least, in a state of Nature in formed manhood as in
immature and helpless infancy. Men, qualified in the manner I have just
described, form in Nature, as she operates in the common modification of
society, the leading, guiding, and governing part. It is the soul to the
body, without which the man does not exist. To give, therefore, no more
importance, in the social order, to such descriptions of men than that
of so many units is a horrible usurpation.
When great multitudes act together, under that discipline of Nature, I
recognize the PEOPLE. I acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and
ought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things the
voice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mighty
and decisive influence.
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