It required the po liti cal ascension of those who had "picked up their convictions, and, what is of more consequence, their prepossessions, in early manhood, which is the one period of life when men are easily impressed with new ideas." As a result, the governmental practices of one period were often attributable to the ideologies of their generational pre de ces sors, and countervailing opinions would be gaining infl uence within the intellectual classes even as politicians put the new conventional wisdom into practice.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 554