Hence, gentlemen, the wisest and greatest statesmen have been generally found among those who have directed their minds at an early period of their lives to morals and politics. Such men become deeply imbued with the great principles of those sciences in their youth. They are early taught to worship at the shrine of truth, while the ardent feeling of devoted patriotism banishes {764} from the mind all narrow considerations of selfishness and shields it against the intolerable prejudices of party spirit. A mind thus early and correctly impressed with the great elementary principles of morals and politics, will ever be well balanced and considerate in its conclusions, and rarely surprised into hasty and rash decisions. In looking to the speeches which emanate from our deliberative bodies, I have often been struck with the exemplification which they afford of the truth of this remark. There is nothing in which our speakers are more defective than in comprehension of view. They seem too often to seize but one single point of a subject; and although they may move with a giant’s strength in that direction, yet the mind remains unsatisfied. One of the principal causes of this defect, is the want of a proper moral and political education in early life. They have not received elementary instruction sufficient to give the proper impulse to the mind. They are capable of taking but one view of a subject, and that is dictated by local and partial interests, or by too intense a consideration of but one set of circumstances. Such politicians, however brilliant they may be in mere detail, are incapable of taking the length, breadth and depth of a great subject; they lack scope and comprehension of idea, and cannot dive down to the bottom—where truth is always found. Such men may be efficient instruments when directed by the genius and the skill of the great politician, but are totally incapable of taking the lead in difficult times, because incapable of forming the conception of great plans and the means by which they are to be executed.[4]