In a great cause, I should certainly wish that my agent should possess conciliating qualities: that he should be of a frank, open, and candid disposition, soft in his nature, and of a temper to soften animosities and to win confidence.
Burke emphasizes the importance of having a conciliatory agent in significant disputes to foster trust and resolve conflicts.
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Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
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