7469. REVOLUTION, Completion of.—
The generation which commences a revolution
rarely completes it. Habituated from their infancy
to passive submission of body and mind
to their kings and priests, they are not qualified
when called on to think and provide for
themselves; and their inexperience, their ignorance
and bigotry make them instruments
often, in the hands of the Bonapartes and
Iturbides, to defeat their own rights and purposes.
This is the present situation of Europe
and Spanish America.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 307.
Ford ed., x, 269.
(M.
1823)
