The Jasper Weekly Courier

The following passage from the concluding paragraph of Macaulay's article in the Edinburgh Review, 1827, on Hallam's Constitutional History, is full of worldly experience and human nature. Great statesmanship makes no delay in seizing upon circumstances and times to accomplish what delay would render impossible.

Had we had statesmen in Congress last session, instead of narrow-minded partisans, who regarded a party platform of more sacred and imperishable materials than the Constitution and Union, we would not now be in the deplorable condition we are. But to the extract.
Macaulay says:

"We know of no great revolution which might not have been prevented by compromise early and graciously made. Firmness is a great virtue in public affairs, but it has its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections, in which small minorities are engaged, the out breaking popular violence unconnected with any extensive project or any durable principle, are best repressed by vigor and decision. To shrink from them is to make them formidable. But no wise ruler will confound the pervading taint with the slight local irritation. No wise ruler will treat the deeply seated discontents of a great party as he treats the conduct of a mob * * The neglect of this distinction has been fatal even to governments strong in the power of the sword.
In all movements of the human mind which tend to great revolutions, there is a crisis, at which moderate concession may amend, conciliate and preserve. Happy will it be for England, if, at that crisis, her interest be confided to men for whom history has not recorded the long series of human crimes and follies in vain."