Sunbury American and Shamokin journal. [volume] (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848, 1843-12-30

power government is only possible by pander-
ing TO their worst passions, which makes the
country unbcarable TO a man of any education,
and the Central Government iselfa by-word a.
mongst civilized nations. hope (he concludes
perhaps consistently enough) that we may live
long enough to see this great bubble burst
and do not believe that we need be very long
lived FOR that" (316)
| am sorry to be under the necessity of de-
claring that one is at loss whether most to
marvel at the total want OF common reflection,
or the extraordinary want ofcommon informn-
ton. in this passage--the production of a man
in high office, addressed to a man still higher.
and who presumcs. without any dcliberation,
and with no knowledge of the subject, to pro.
nouncc 50 sweeping censure upon the whole
body of great nation, all their statesmen, and
all their institutions. 1t is fit the Americans
should we'll understand that these are the er.
rors and this the rashness of the late Governor
General of Canada anl not shared by the Llbe-
raj party, or by any but the most ignorant and
the most prcjudiccd in this country.
First Of all, Lord Sydenham is no authority
on the subject of the United States, merely be.
cause he was Governor o. Canada and never in
the Union at all. Had he remained in London
he would have been as well qualified to Judge
OF those States, as his living near them for two
years could make him; nay, a great deal bet.
ter for his residence in Canada, without giving
him one title more Of information, had the man
fest tendency to I'll his mind with Canadian
preudces and these views seem 10 gain a
still greater ascendant over him by the disputes
ot a border nature, in which he was involved
! should, during the separation of England and
Scotland before the seventeenth century. never
have looked TO the Warden of the West March.
es for caDdid account of the people on the
Scotch border when he lived at Carlisle But
had the Warden directed his hostile operations
from York or from Lincoln, | should have be.
leved him just as ignorant as If he had lived in
London, nnla very great deal more preiudiccd
Next, let us observe how little the Governor
General had studied constitutions when he as
sumes the Office oil deciding on their compara-
tive merits. 1t would not be easy to crowd
more nantes, errors into one sentence than are
ionnd in the few lines about ancient republics
Many things respecting those systems are OBJ
scurely known, and are therefore the subject Of
controversy; but no one ever affected to doubt
OF the matters on which this strange sentence
errs, and errs dogmatically. Sparta is Of course
alluded to by the mention of IIeots but Spar
ia was not republican, it was an arlstocratic
govcrnmrnt--The Athens, which was re-
public, so far from proving that such govern
ment "coud answer" is precisely the example
always resorted 10 in order to prove what Lord
Sydenhnm states TO be the vice octhe Amer-
can Government as contrastcd with the Gre
clan, namely, the statesman "pandering to the
passions of the people" Yet, this nolwth-
standing, can any one say that Athens, the
very scat oi'this worst OF vices, was By il "made
unbearable 10 a man Of any education. DOCS
he conceive that any ofus, even in Canada, are
more refined, more civilized, more educated,
than the ornaments of AthGnlan society, the
very men who were iaiu to court the people
II is another error equally great TO make il the
peculiar characteristic OF the modern republic
and the feature that distinguishes it from the an.
clent, that the 'people really had the power
In Athens, II any where, they really had the
power we are only left to speculate On the re.
stralnts under which it was exercised and even
to doubt ifany such existed in practice. But
ossrrcdly the bulk of the power was in their
hands more than in any ether democracy, an,
cient or modern.
That in the american Government. there ey.
Isl great mpertectiunS no man can doubt one
! among the greatest has lately been removed
because the Central power of the Fcderucy i,
now enabled better to maintain lis relation,
with foreign states in consequence Of the recent
/ Improvement OF the constitutional law But
there remain Glote which still disigure the sys
| ten, and in practice sadly ma. its working O
! these, the very worst, undoubtedly, Is the en-
tire change of public tinctlonaries, from the
highest TO the lowest, which follows every
change OF the President, converts all the more
/ consi derable members of the Community into
| place-huntcrs, and makes the whole interval
/ between one election Of chief magistrate anC
another, constant scene ofcanyass. The re
moval Of this and a few other imporfecton.
would make the Government of America a:
faultess as n very popular system can never be
| That some and even considerable evils would