Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-06-03

deceive, them: none prompter or more insolent
than these very demagogues, when foiled of their
arts by the popular sense really exerted, to BIAS
pheme the People, whenever it refuses to let them
be its priests and speak its oracles.
The next member of their platform boasts of
their respect for the popular w'' Let us see.
Did they respect it in 1910, when they cried out that
the people hadbeen corrupted, that the people were
"drunk - Do they respect it any where, except
just where they have majority Let the people
any where vote against them, and they are at once,
if rich, stigmatized as aristocrats - il poor
Z" drunken" Is there no s'people" in Vermont or
New England, or New Jersey or Maryland, or
North Carolina or Kentucky or Ohio! Will there
be none in New York, when it shall, next Novem-
Der, vote against them! Do freemen lose their re-
spectability when they cannot consent 10 support
for the Presidency Mr.. Polk, who made the Mexi-
can war, or Gen. CAss, who, besides being a for
ward advocate Of all that, wanted ffty-four-fory
war! Do freemen lose their rights when they can
not approve all the measures, no matter how illegal
or FOOLISH of those in power? If that be so, then
how is this Government not despotism! We
(poor Federasts," as the friends of Mr.. BucHA-
NAN, of Judge fancy, Of Gov. WALL, of MARCUS
Morton, and so many other excellent !" Republi-
cans style us) had really thought that the g will
of the people" was worthy of freeman's respect,
because they whose collective vote decided that
Evil" were all, singty, free citizens, independent,
equal, sovereign, just as much each in himself as
all together. In our simplicity, we did not know
that they had no free voice in those public matters
which are said to belong to them; we were ignor-
ant that they must, under penalty Of being treated
as political outcasts, vote as the Managers of So
called Democratic Party" see good to order. We
were not aware that in this boosted commonwealth,
party held together, openly declared in the Sc
nate by an eminent man who has reason to know
them, by the cohesive power of public plunder''
the party las another high authority has more sue
cinctly and frankly expressed iD of the "spoils,"
has only to put on the empty name of " Demo-
cracy," and placard its adversaries as " Federal
ISIS in order to take right the fullest and most
entire to abolish the citizenship, the equality, the
public franchises, and the good name itself of all
who are unable to think as commanded. This ex-
clusion is effected in various ways, some of which
we had briefly sketched for insertion here but want
of space excludes them. That which is most noto-
rous, however, is the ruthless Prescription under
which all who will not take the name of Demo-
crat," be they never devoted to the Republic, to
its institutions, its glory, and It's welfare be they
never so otherwise meritorious or qualified, are,
under all the pretended forms Of freedom, stricken
from the privilege of holding any national Office or
employment just as much as the Jews and the Ca
thoc Irish once ncapacitated to hold seats in
Parliament, by laws long the shame of the British
statute-books butnow abolished there.
But the Wings, il is ntimated in this same candid
Platform do not profess an equal submissive
ness to the popular WILL Well, perhaps it is So
But the Wings, il seems 10 US, make quite as loud
professions of blind submission to the peoples
will" of PROSTATE admiration for the peoples in
elligence honesty, and patriotism as men can do
who respect either themselves or the people Flat
terers, cozeners, and slaves, not the sincere and
manly, ever abound in this sort of wheedling. Ii
should excite suspicion, not confidence. The
" People are but men, and quite fallible, like the
rest Of mankind. Except to the base, who worship
the po,oer of the People, and who would equally
worship that power were it Kings, the People
are not Deties, to be adored and, if they were,
would not it is to be hoped, be such shallow ones
as to the sincerity of their adorers by the
noisiness of their prayers or the quantity of empty
incense which they burnt upon their shrnes. sot-
tsh King takes his greatest fauerers for his truest
friends; but wise sovereign knows his worst and
his most worthy subjects; those by their being con-
santy counting him on their knees, these by their
standing erect serving him. and telling him of his err
rors, not his vain projections Of majesty might or
If kings may be cajoled, so can
the sovereign people. The true power Of either
suffers, and is subject to be lost, by nothing so
much by their listening rather to their own pas
sions and pride, and to the servile and selfish who
play upon them than to the sincere voice OF those
who love them. Demagogues are but the same
fatal iatterers Of the sovereign people who would,
were that'peope monarch, be his Simplest, most
cringing courtiers. Wo to either King or Common
wealth that, won by their obsequiousness, yields
the scepre to their hands A tyranny ensues, an
abuse of all the public powers, for the same bad
ends of the sycophants the awners, the favorites,
who, by dnt OF humoring and deceiving, have mas
tered their master. And, as such a surrender of
their authority TO mere mnions conducts kings to
the loss Of their crowns, to revolution and downfall,