3600. GRATITUDE, Principles of.—
To
say that gratitude is never to enter into the
motives of national conduct is to revive a
principle which has been buried for centuries
with its kindred principles of the lawfulness
of assassination, poison, perjury, &c. All of
these were legitimate principles in the dark
ages, which intervened between ancient and
modern civilization, but exploded and held in
just horror in the eighteenth century.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 99.
Ford ed., v, 111.
(P.
1789)
