The fear of differing with the authority of
leaders on the one hand, and of contradicting the desires of the
multitude on the other, induces them to give a careless and passive
assent to measures in which they never were consulted; and thus things
proceed, by a sort of activity of inertness, until whole bodies,
leaders, middle-men, and followers, are all hurried, with every
appearance and with many of the effects of unanimity, into schemes of
politics, in the substance of which no two of them were ever fully
agreed, and the origin and authors of which, in this circular mode of
communication, none of them find it possible to trace. In my experience,
I have seen much of this in affairs which, though trifling in comparison
to the present, were yet of some importance to parties; and I have known
them suffer by it. The sober part give their sanction, at first through
inattention and levity; at last they give it through necessity. A
violent spirit is raised, which the presiding minds after a time find it
impracticable to stop at their pleasure, to control, to regulate, or
even to direct.
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