Civic virtue

“ For the looser the bond of social union, and the more anarchical the condition of any state, the greater is the individual merit of any citizen who nevertheless observes the rules of morality and justice, and the praise of virtue is more considered as his particular due. ”

“ The benevolence, charity, capacity, and industry which, exerted in private life, would make a family, a parish, or a town happy, employed upon a larger scale, in support of the great principles of virtue and freedom of political regulations, might secure whole nations and generations from misery, want, and contempt. Public virtues and political qualities, therefore, should be incessantly cherished in our children. ”

“ Whatever standards, therefore, were recognised by the community, the individual members were constrained to live up to them in a society where words and deeds lay open to the collective criticism. And the standard was really a high one. Truth, honour, courage, generosity, nobility, were qualities common to the whole body; and those who were not so endowed by birthright could not help assuming the virtue they did not possess, and, through practice, making it eventually their own. ”

“ He best understood the indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and individual felicity: watching with an equal and comprehensive eye over this great assemblage of communities and interests, he laid the foundations of our national policy in the unerring, immutable principles of morality, based on religion, exemplifying the preeminence of free government, by all the attributes which win the affection of its citizens or command the respect of the world. ”

“ I. That communities, both small and great are on trial here, and that they are eventually called into judgment and rewarded and punished according to their use, or abuse of talents, is fairly deducible from the subject under consideration. Such being the divine administration, we see the importance of national virtue. Morals are the health and strength of a community: While they remain no enemy can prevail against it. ”

“ But several general causes have tended to increase it in our own generation, despite the increasing strength of the appeal which civic duty makes to men who are, or if they cared might be, better informed about public affairs than were their fathers. ”

“ Here, then, lie the first Foundations of civil Liberty: In forming the Habits of the youthful Heart, to a Coincidence with the general Welfare: In checking every rising Appetite that is contrary to This, and in forwarding every Passion that may promote the Happiness of the Community: In implanting and improving Benevolence, Self-Controul, Humility, Integrity, and Truth ”

“ What, for example, are the qualities in the citizens individually which conduce most to keep up the amount of good conduct, of good management, of success and prosperity, which already exist in society? Every body will agree that those qualities are industry, integrity, justice, and prudence. But are not these, of all qualities, the most conducive to improvement? and is not any growth of these virtues in the community in itself the greatest of improvements? ”

“ It gives habits of analyzing the aims and motives of men, and the means they employ to attain their ends, i.e., it gives insight into character and hence makes social adjustment easier.
(b) It develops tolerance for the opinions, convictions, and ideals of others, and tends to prevent hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising judgments and attitudes.
(c) It gives appreciation of the civic and political institutions of to-day—their origin, development, and purposes—and hence teaches the rights and obligations that are inherent in citizenship. ”

“ This one truth I would mark, that nature has so strongly implanted in man the necessity of virtue, and so powerful an inclination to defend the common welfare, that this principle overcomes all the blandishments of voluptuousness and ease. ”

“ Wherefore let those who have treated upon the moral conduct of life, be deemed by us, great men, as they are; learned men; masters of truth and virtue. Yet let it be admitted that civil rights, and the government of a people, whether they are the fruits of men experienced in the management of public affairs, or, as the fact has been, the result of their literary leisure, be least despised; causing as they do to spring up in great minds, as we have often seen, an incredible and divine virtue. ”

“ That reasons as well as feelings may help the establishment of happiness and liberty, on the basis of wisdom and virtue, be our aim and intention. Let us not be led into any means which are unworthy of this end, nor, as [Pg 250] so much depends upon yourselves, let us cease carefully to watch over our conduct, that when we talk of reform it be not objected to us, that reform ought to begin at home. In the interval that public or private duties and necessary labours allow, husband your time so that you may do to others and yourselves the most real good. ”

“ The education of youth he considers as a principal concern of the state, in order that, all the individual citizens being trained to a virtuous life, virtue may become predominant in all the spheres of political life; and, accordingly, by means of politics the object is realized of which ethics are the groundwork, namely, human happiness, depending on a life in accordance with virtue. ”

“ Constant and uninterrupted experience has proved to man, that virtue and justice in those who govern, are sufficient to render the society happy, under any form of government. Virtue and justice when applied to government mean no more than a tender affection for the whole society, and an exact and impartial regard for the interest of every class. ”

“ Every wise man, in and out of government, will endeavor, therefore, to promote the ascendency of public virtue and public principle, and to restrain as far as practicable, in the actual operation of our institutions, the influence of selfish and private interests. ”

“ The same humble reverence, the same mutual goodwill, the same regard for durability, the same jealousy for integrity as informed his personal conscience and inspired his personal will, should form the law and determine the deeds of the Nation as well, if the Nation was ever to have in its civic being a dignity worthy to survive. ”

“ And I now proceed to add, that the strong and deep-settled conviction of all intelligent persons amongst us is, that, in order to support a useful and wise government upon these popular principles, the general education of the people, and the wide diffusion of pure morality and true religion, are indispensable. Individual virtue is a part of public virtue. It is difficult to conceive how there can remain morality in the government when it shall cease to exist among the people ”

“ Virtue and right conduct consist in those affections and actions which terminate in the public good; justice and veracity, for instance, having nothing intrinsically excellent in them, separate from their relation to the happiness of mankind; and the whole system of right to power, property, and every thing else in society, must be regulated by the same consideration: the decisive question, when any of these subjects are examined, being, What is it that the good of the community requires? ”

“ A small population, trained to honor and virtue, to liberality of culture and breadth of view, to self-reliance and self-respect, is a thousand times better than an over-crowded one with everything at loose ends. ”

“ Public spirit is the life of the community in the heart of the individual.—This recognition that we belong to society, and that society belongs to us, that its interests are our interests, that its wrongs are ours to redress, its rights are ours to maintain, its losses are ours to bear, its blessings are ours to enjoy, is public spirit. ”

“ And let us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men respectable and happy, under any form of government. Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable, which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. ”

“ Shall our lives be secure? Shall our homes be safe? Shall our wives and children live in quiet? Shall right, and not might, be the governing principle of society?
“It is to decide questions thus vital to our happiness and that of those who are dependent upon us, that we have now met; and I beg you as fellow-men, as brothers, as friends and neighbors, as you value life, and liberty, and justice, and a good conscience, to come to their consideration ready and determined to act for the best good of the greatest number. ”

“ The other aims decreed in the fundamental law like the development of personal and collective discipline, civic conscience, vocational skill and social efficiency, should be subordinated to the cultivation of moral character as the handmaiden of an intransigent nationalism. ”

“ We will ever respect and inculcate virtue, both public and private, and deprecate vice in all its dazzling forms. Nothing shall ever appear in our columns to disturb the present public tranquillity, unless we see danger lurking therein, which duty requires us to expose to public view. ”

“ We are bound to do all we can to promote the virtue and happiness of our fellow-men and women, and therefore we must accept and seize every instrument of power, every vote, every influence which we can obtain, to enable us to promote virtue and happiness. ”

“ But bestow upon them the principles of eternal truth; teach them how to live so as to do honour to their existence; teach them how to preserve themselves—how to preserve their companions, their associates, friends, and relatives; teach them how to preserve themselves as communities and nations, and how to secure and preserve to every person his equal and legal rights, seeking to preserve them in the truth, in light, in intelligence, in honour; and in every principle and act calculated to make a happy, Godlike, heavenly, social community. These are my views of civilization. ”

“ To54 this end he embraced every opportunity, both in public and private life, to inculcate, by precept and example, those great principles of moral rectitude, inflexible virtue, purity of motive, and nobleness of action, that alone can permanently preserve a nation. ”

“ Public spirit, intelligence, uprightness, temperance, kindness, domestic purity, will make it a happy community, and give it prosperity and continuance. Wide-spread selfishness, dishonesty, intemperance, libertinism, corruption, and crime, will make it miserable, and bring about dissolution and speedy ruin. A whole people lives one life; one mighty heart heaves in its bosom; it is one great pulse of existence that throbs there. ”

“ Nothing need be said to shew the value of the three kinds of liberty which I have distinguished under the names of Physical, Moral, and Religious Liberty. They are, without doubt, the foundation of all the happiness and dignity of men, as reasonable and moral agents, and the subjects of the Deity.—It is, in like manner, true of Civil Liberty, that it is the foundation of the whole happiness and dignity of men as members of civil society, and the subjects of civil government. ”

“ Above all, This will give Stability to civil Liberty, if the social Passions of Individuals can be so far extended, as to include the Welfare of the whole Community, as their chief and primary Object. This Affection is distinguished by the Name of public Spirit, or the Love of our Country; the highest Passion that can sway the human Heart, considered as a permanent Foundation of true Liberty. ”

“ In other words, as a return for what you wish to have society do for you, what can you do for society? This is a very important question—more important to you than to society. The question is, whether you will be a member of society by right, or by courtesy. If you have so mean a spirit as to be content to be a beneficiary of society—to receive favors and to confer none—you have no business in the society to which you aspire. ”

“ We have shown the example of a nation, in which every class of society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence has assigned to it; while at the same time every individual of each class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale — not by injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality — but by persevering good conduct, and by the steady and energetic exertion of the moral and intellectual faculties with which his Creator has endowed him. ”

“ The virtues are dispositions to exercise positively, in some way contributory to social good, those powers which, because admitting of being so exercised, society should secure to him; the powers which a man has a right to possess, which constitute his rights. ”

“ Whatever we can do to benefit society benefits ourselves, and in throwing ourselves heart and soul into any of those enterprises that benefit society we are discharging in a very special way the duties of good citizenship. ”

“ As they have the several Modes of Self-Love, for the Preservation of the Individual; so, by proper Culture, they gain Habits of Benevolence, Religion, social Prudence, the Love of honest Reputation, and sometimes even a Regard for the general Welfare of the Society to which they belong. As these social Passions and Regards are strong or weak, frequent or uncommon; the Character of a Nation is good or bad, honest or corrupt, upright or profligate. ”

“ He brought to politics a horror of crime, a vivacity and sincerity of conscience, a humanity, a sensibility, which seem only suitable to a young man. He based human society on maxims of morality, insisted upon a high and pure tone of feeling in the conduct of public business, and seemed to have undertaken to raise and authorize the generosity of the human heart. ”