Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-01-17
POLITICAL REFORMATION.


hammer away at the public kettle with prodigious
din, until they knock out its bottom and with no
proof Of good done, (unless be in the noise they
make and the money they take,) they urge the rent
and battered state of the caldron as constant rea-
son for more hammering and more clangor.
It must be confessed that these apostles of refor-
nation, besides the many strange amelorations
they have brought about arc altogether unfortunate
in their reforms all of which have to be presently
reformed again, great deal worse than the sup
posed abuses which they pretended to cure.
The fact being, in TRUTH that the abuses or cor
ruptions which one set in power have permitted are
just as convenient for the ends of the nerf re-
forms" are usually but bait with which to catch
popularity; or, at best, they are the promises of
eager to get into authority, and only persuaded
that, having gotten it, they will be extremely virtu-
Gus. The sinccrest rarely can effect much in them !;
for, il abuses be serious, their existence bcspeaks
not only las we have said) something that suits
those governing but an interest that has grown up
and even public immortality not easily cured.
Accordingly, what were the reforms for which the
Jacksonian Democracy clamored before it arrived
at supremacy! Rotation in Office; non-appoint-
ment Of members of Congress to places in the gift
of the Executive; non-reward of partisan edi-
tors non-interlerence of Federal officers in cleo
tons; agreat reduction of the public expenditures
and an extreme forbearance in the use of any dis
puted power under the Constitution. Now, of all
these vehement promises, we might safely chal-
lenge our political adversaries to show single one
that has been kept. One after another, they all
came to be violated.
Nor did the victorious 50 Democracy by any
means confne themselves to this sort Of accomplish
ment Of promised reforms-most like to that of the
unclean spirit mentioned in the good book, who,
being gone out of man. walketh restless about in
dry places, and, presently taking with him seven
demons fouer than himself, enereth again into the
man. making his last state worst than his first. Not
only did they thus give the publications bargained
for, but they bestowed upon us variety of volun-
teer reforms, not in their promises, and not in any
body's wishes.
They gave us Ito mention only the chiefly the Pre-
sdent's claim to be more the representative of the
people than Congress his assumption that all the
Executive officers were his officers; his pretension
to dispense with the laws or execute them as he
liked, under the plea that he to judge for him
self of their constitutionality his war upon the
Supreme Court; his other war upon the Senate as
an aristocratic body; his third war upon the Bank
of the United States, his fourth war upon the cur
rcncy his fifth war upon all credit his sixth
for State and pet Banks; his seventh war against
them; his eighth war upon notification his own
party's notification of the laws of Congress by
a single branch of Congress the cxpunge the
toSf fha ckatin Of 9th yiSa to
be defeated; the Veto held up as terror over
legislation the New Jersey case State rights
violently protested when convenient; State rights
declared in the Proclamation neUer TO have existed.
They found the State faith good and they gave
us Reputation. They found the currency good
and they gave suspension of specie payments.
They found the vested rights of Corporations the
policy of all our legislation as communities and
they left US charter-breaking. They found landed
property safe; and they have given us antrent
with agrarianism in prospect They found Repub-
licanism; they have left us Locofocoism. They
found us with fUo natural parties, both of mode
rate spirit towards each other and of conservative
purpose towards institutions they have left two
great and furious parties, embttered by mutual in
jures hydrabrood of wild sects, ultraism of every
thing, radcalism the most perilous, and that portcn
Of headlong advance from bad to worse, Progress
sivc Democracy" not to be resisted except by
conservatism, forced itself, to counter-demagogue
and to oblige the people with many pernicious
things, in order to win an influence that may draw
them from things utterly destructive.
All these are solemn truths, not to be gainsayed,
and of the sincerity of which the Public (f it asks
one) has strong pledge in that last aUowa, certain
to be any thing but agreeable to our own friends.
We need scarcely say that we have recognised the
fact with reluctance, and that It's wrung from us only
by the growth of the state Of things which alarms
us no longer as mere politicians, but citizens, and
not for parties but the Government and our country.
Younger men, not witnesses of what existed
twenty years ago, midway only in our own poll
teal experence must be less sensible Of the fright
full changes Of which we speak changes such, and
SO visbly threatening still more rapid and terrible
ones, that, amidst hundred sects and schisms be-
wdering the popular mind with new fanatcisms
every day; amidst practice as INSCRIPTIONS as
the doctrines are over-virtuous amidst uni
versal disorder, Generalization, violence, venality,
infatuation, and selfshness with patriotism of
ofIce-seekers and President-makers with liberty
such the worst or most ignorant men are loudest
for; we turn our eyes only with dismay upon the
sDecfacle of p,bc affairs and endeayor in vain to