"
His support of the bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act, as well as his plea for
reconciliation, ten years later, were not prompted by a firm belief in the
injustice of England's course. He expressly states, in both cases that to
enforce measures so repugnant to the Americans, would be detrimental to the home
government. It would result in confusion and disorder, and would bring, perhaps,
in the end, open rebellion. All of his speeches on American affairs show his
willingness to "barter and compromise" in order to avoid this, but nowhere is
there a hint of fundamental error in the Constitution. This was sacred to him,
and he resented to the last any proposition looking to an organic change in its
structure. "The lines of morality," he declared, "are not like ideal lines of
mathematics. They are broad and deep, as well as long. They admit of exceptions;
they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are made, not by
the process of logic, but the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only first in
rank of all the virtues, political and moral, but she is the director, the
regulator, the standard of them all.
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