7201. REFORM, Public money and.—
I
am sensible how far I should fall short of effecting
all the reformation which reason would
suggest, and experience approve, were I free to
do whatever I thought best; but when we
reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the
great machine of society, how impossible to
advance the notions of a whole people suddenly
to ideal right, we see the wisdom of
Solon's remark, that no more good must be
attempted than the nation can bear, and that
all will be chiefly to reform the waste of public
money, and thus drive away the vultures
who prey upon it, and improve some little
upon old routines. Some new fences for securing
constitutional rights may, with the aid
of a good Legislature, perhaps be attainable.—
To Dr. Walter Jones. Washington ed. iv, 392.
(W.
March. 1801)
