Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-06-21

JAcoDIN CLUBS AND THEIR DICrATIoN
K There is nothing that more honorabiy marks tne
difference between the Northern and the Southern
divisions OF the so-called /" Democracy, than their
opposite spirit as TO z the spoils It's IN tins mat
ter that they of the latter quarter still show some-
thing or the old Republican temper the feeling that
in free country, adyersaries are men and citizens
stl--are entitled TO political tolerance, 10 personal
consideration to continued share in public trusts
Of at least the ordinary kind, if they have hereto
fore occupied them honorably to themselves. and
usefully to the country: for that after ALL to have
deserved well Of all parties alike by discharging
with faithfuness difficult and responsible trust is
to have merit far beyond any that men untred
except partisans can boast and that to thrust
out those for the mere personal benefit Of these, at
the hazard Of wide injury to the public service
and Of the corruption Of all public ideas, is deeply
to wrong and betray the people and their hopes Of
good government Let party call itself what il may,
there is hardly any thing which it can effect caPa-
bic of at all compromising the deep mischief niict-
ed, the ineradcabe faint spread through the whole
business OF administering public affairs, by such
system of conduct. II there be any man who de-
serves the curse Of his country: if there be one
who has poisoned the entire Government: if there
be one whose invention is wickeder, because less
capable Of being counteraced, than that Of him who
has conspred with domestic enemies or sold the
State to foreign one it is he who first for his own
individual and party ends, taught cabals to design,
and whole party to tolerate, the abominable idea
that the Government is TO be held bef,0een contend
ing jactions, like a mere helpless fo,0,,, nov be-
sieged by this and non By that army, and to be
giUea up 10 The badiscrinsinate pl,oader Of boh as
either prevails and erpeiS the other.
1t is. easy to see how idle must be all pretences
principle, how hopeless all promises Of doctrine,
how mere cheat all talk of reform, when body
OF politicians, by the avowal of such intentions pro-
claim the tactics of slaughter and of rapine; give
notice that whoever can kill an opponent shall strip
his body, carry away his watch, and tear off his
epaules; and call to their ranks every thing that
sangunary in point of feeling and rapacious in pur-
pose. Then must
e This whiskerd pandoor and the fierce hussar
ssAnd all the sons Of raysge crowd the war;"
and the whole strife become one animated by hard
y any better motive hsa the lust of power and the
rage of venality. AS little can they who set such
wild and fatal passions foot to procure to in
cite followers, be the friends Of the country they
would govern, as men who first kindle up civil
war in their land then invite crowds of mercenaries
from abroad with the offer of living at free quarters
ask robbers and cutthroats to their standard, and
finally swell their forces by procuring servile in
surrection.
they begin by corrupting the whole body Of
their own party, by infuriating the opposite one,
and thus overseeing the public morality of both al
most alike: SO that presently, matter which
side succeed, the same system of rewards must to
great extent ensue, the public service be utterly
sacrificed TO the illegimate claims of hot PARTISAN
ship and the great active body of politicians of both
factions become either deeply infected with the
same mere rage of personal advantage or with a.
passion almost as pernicions, if less dishonest
rancor and spirit of revenge, that holds every man
on the other side fair object of prescription as
soon as the party to which he has attached himself
is worsted.
To this state of things soon succeeds another still
more deplorabe: when the better party prevails,
that party will do, through what seems but war
rantable resentment-or indeed upon cases where
mere justice towards men wrongfuly driven nom
office, others wrongfully put into it, pleads for
proscription--just what it condemned in its beaten
rival. 1t thus lets down its own standard of public
duty, and affords seeming justification to what it
is furnishing; that the practice Of both sides
speedily settles this exccrable public method into
thing which excite apprehension and alarm
exceptin minority Of both parties. Then follows
rapid augmentation Of the class who make Of politics
mere trade; who adopt creed only upon calcula-
ton who are ready to sustain any party act Of the
party that appears secure in power and the mass
OF such men grows SO strong that they who first
called them in hirelings and soldiers Of fortune
become almost the slaves of those of whom they
late were masters. The vena and clamorous seek
ers OF Office claim their reward and signify their
VIII and the dispensers of the booty dare scarcely
refuse to distribute the common spoil Such is, as
TO portion Of Locofocoism, the condition at which
we are arrived.
In this, however, Gas we have already sadly the
Southern division Of the pretended Democracy still
preserves something of the spirit of better dav.
II looks with Indignation upon the entire system of
the spoils and at times vents its contempt upon the
nsoent pretensions of Jacobin associations in
strain like that Of the extract below, which we take
from the Charleston Courier, a paper formerly
Whiggsh, but which has always preserved its local
respect for the irresistible ascendency of Mr.. CAL
in, 10 md