To select and depute those by whom laws are to be made and taxes to be granted is a high dignity and an important trust; and it is the business of every elector to consider how this dignity may be faithfully discharged.
It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in this national deliberation that no person can deserve to serve in government who is not a patriot. No other person will protect our rights: no other person can merit our confidence.
A patriot is one whose public conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of their country, who, as an elected official, has for themselves neither hope nor fear, kindness nor resentment, but refers everything to the common interest.
Let us take our patriots where we meet them and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain from those which may deceive; for a person may have the external appearance of a patriot without the constituent qualities, as false coins have often luster though they want weight.
Some claim a place in the list of patriots by acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the status quo. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rancor. A person may hate their government yet not love their country.
The greater number of those who rave and rail and inquire and accuse neither suspect nor fear nor care for the public but hope to force their way to riches by virulence and invective and are vehement and clamorous only that they may be sooner hired to be silent.
To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation is to suspend public happiness if not to destroy it. They are no lovers of their country that unnecessarily disturb its peace. Few errors and few faults of government can justify an appeal to the rabble, who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand and whose opinions are not propagated by reason but caught by contagion.
It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations and to see public dangers at a distance. A true lover of their country is ready to communicate their fears and to sound the alarm whenever they perceive the approach of mischief. But they sound no alarm when there is no enemy; they never terrify their countrymen till they are terrified themselves.
Still less does the true patriot circulate opinions which they know are false.
A true patriot is always ready to countenance the just claims and animate the reasonable hopes of the people. But all this may be done in appearance without real patriotism. Those who raise false hopes to serve a present purpose only make a way for disappointment and discontent. Those who promise to perform what they know to be impossible mean only to delude their followers by an empty clamor of ineffectual zeal.
True patriots consider themselves as deputed to promote the public good and to preserve their constituents, with the rest of their countrymen, not only from being hurt by others but from hurting themselves.
If to choose representatives be one of the most valuable rights of Americans, every voter must consider that law as adding to their happiness which makes voting fair, since it was vain to choose while the election could be controlled by any other power.
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I did not write the foregoing, alas, only tweaked it to trick you. Dr. Johnson wrote it for his fellow Brits 250 years ago – and for us today.