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

Ihdl SCCIIiS VI lutc years 10 nave COME over some
friends OF liberty in this country inclining them
against the popular institutions which that sys.
TEN consccrates, and upon which it reposes
Writers of ability, but scnnti'y endowed with
candor observers ofmoderate circumspecton,
men laboring under the prcudccs of European
society, and viewing the social system O. the
New World through the medium of habits and
associations peculiar to that of the Old, have
brought back for our information number of
details, for which they needed hardly to cross
the Atlantic, and have given mp as discoveries
relation of fmaitcrs necessarily existing under
very popular government, and in very new
community. As those travellers had pretty
generally failed 10 make many converts among
the friends of free institutions, either in France
or in England, there wonld have been little
harm done 10 the cause oftruth, and no great in.
tcrrnpion given to the friendly relations which
the highest interests of beth countries require
shouM be maintained unbroRcn between them
But nnhappiIy some persons of superior class
appear, from party or from personal feelings to
Lave, without due reflection on the mischief
they were doing, suffered their minds to be poi
sonGd by the same preiulices; and, single in
discretion having suffered their private letters,
written under The influence of such prcposs es-
SONS, to sec the light it becomes every one
whose general opinions coincide with those of
the individuals in question, to protest against
the inference that such sentiments are shared
by the Liberal party in England. This becomes
the more necessary, in consequence of the ten
dency which the most rcprehensible conduct Of
some of the States in the Union towards their
public creditors has to prepare the way for the
reception ofsuch unsound opinions-opinons
which, iflet( 10 themselves, would probably soon
sink into oblivion, how respectable soever the
quarters which they may without due rcfec-
tion have been suffered to reach allude more
particularly TO some letters lately published of
Lord Sydenhan, written confdentially to his
late colleagues, while he was acting under
them as Governor General of British North A.
merica--lcttcrs, the publication of which has.
to me, who knew their writer, and respected his
generally sound principles, been a subject OF
much regret, which be appears to have written
IN moment OF some irritation, but winch would
do serious injury to the good understanding that
happily has been restored between the two ma
ticns, il they were supposed lC speak the sense
otthose among us who are most friendly to A.
merica.
\ great deal orvague and general abuse may
be passed OVER as that the Americans "are
calculating people, and fight not for glory but
plunder '-"such a set of braggadocos, lhat their
public men must submit to the claims of their
cXtravagant vanity and sef.suhcienuy"- that
there is among them general debasement =
. that those who aim at place are corrupt and cor
rupterS, and the masScs who bcstow prefcrment
/ ignorant, preiudiced, dishonest, and utterly i'm
moral fear me most If not all this railing
might be retortod upon a certain nation whose
wars in China have been warmly eulogized by
Lord Sydenham in another letter. though he is
greatly scandaizcd that all the glory of his
friends is not likely TO prevent their seats "slp
ping from under thcm;" a nation whose gene.
/ raj elections have Of late yeats been found a
scene Of the most hateful corruption although
we SHOULD be guilty of most gross and unpar-
donsbIe cXaggeration, were we on this account
to stigmatiza the whole people as "utterly i'm
moral" in the terms rashly applied to his neigh.
bors by the Canadian Government
But the charges which he allows himself to
lay, and which his relatives have thought ;r
right to PUBLISH are more specific THE Go
vernment seems 10 me the worst of tyrunnies.
that of the mob supported by the most olious
and prohigate corruption, No man vino aims
at power dare avow an opinion of his own he
must pandcr tn the lowest preiudices of the
people, aud in their parties Uhe two great ones
which now divide the Union, the Locolocos and
Ihe Whigs) the oriy subject of the leading men
oteIther is 10 instil some wrechedly low senti-
ment into the people, and then explode it for
their own advantage is scarcely q
statesman Of either who would lot adopt the
most ylolcn, or the basest doctrine, however, il
he thought that he could work il to advantage
with the majority-peculation and jobbing are
the only objects ; deluson, and the basest fat.
terry of the people, the means" "lf" adds this
discreet statesman, "they drive us into war, the
blacks in the south will soon settle all that
part Of the Union; and in the north feel sure
that we can lick them to their hearts content
"A Republic could answer in former times II