But our Constitution has more
impediments than helps. Its excellencies, when they come to be put to
this sort of proof, may be found among its defects.
Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an ancient fortification. Its
lofty, embattled walls, its bold, projecting, rounded towers, that
pierce the sky, strike the imagination and promise inexpugnable
strength. But they are the very things that make its weakness. You may
as well think of opposing one of these old fortresses to the mass of
artillery brought by a French irruption into the field as to think of
resisting by your old laws and your old forms the new destruction which
the corps of Jacobin engineers of to-day prepare for all such forms and
all such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of their
construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress itself
is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every part of
it.
Such is the work. But miserable works have been defended by the
constancy of the garrison. Weather-beaten ships have been brought safe
to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that we
shall eminently fail.
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