Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-01-15
SATURDAY, JANUARY is, ls4s.
POLITICAL CLAP-TRAP.

There are certain things that it has become me-
cessary we should say, if we would not, in the
midst of all that summons the country 10 decisive
effort of its whole sense and spirit quietly allow all
appeals to the common sense and common honesty
Of our countrymen to be thwarted by the force Of
few perverted phrases, the captivation of which is
to hold and lead this whole land, completely spell
bound as if the lies of magic were realities, and
syllable or two of gbberish could reverse all the
laws of Nature and turn human intelligence into
brutishness.
Certainly, it passes for ridiculous, in these en-
lightened times, that there should have ever been
power in certain cabalistic sounds otherwise
meaningless enough) that could command the
whole invisible world, call down the moon from her
sphere, turn deserts into fairy land make regions
shift their place, and by only little hocuspocus,
change night to day, black into white, convert,
as in an Arabian enchantment whole nation
Of men into an ant-hil, upon which any body
might set his heel and crush into dust at once
an entire people and their monuments We
laugh, nowadays, at the Circean syllables that
changed men into swine; at that marvellous spear
which, both friendly and fatal, had only to be
rubbed upon the wounds it had made in order to
heal them we look with prodigious contempt on
that wise Roman Censor who gravely favors us
with dozen words Of jargon, the mumbng over of
which was sovereign recipe for setting disloca-
ted joint or mending broken bone; and the more
modern empric's wonderful salve, that cured the
most dreadful cuts or contusons, by merely anoint-
ing the blade the budgeon that inflicted them is
now, by the very children, heard Of as an astonish-
ing proof of the simplicity of our easily-deluded
forefathers. What, however, if some vndicator of
the Black Art should start up, reaffirm the virtue
which is in two three particular calculations, be
the champion of conjuration, and prove that the
iabbering of few strange words to men can still
transform them into beasts
There are still, as much as ever, sounds that be-
witch multitudes of people and have, by their mere
senseless utterance, secret strength, some mys
teal virtue, that subdues the understandings of
many and sinks them into irrational animals. There
are mere forms of speech which, set for some men,
catch them like gudgeons. There is small fry
of political mnnows whom thus any boy can catch
with string and pin-hook; there are shoals be-
sides whom mere authority and its pleasure can
make game of and dip up Undated, like sprats or
shrmps, in any drag-net it chooses to use.
To come, however to instances of these easy
dupes Of sentence, these human gudgeons of a
word Among the famous and fatal absurdiiies
which darken the history of mankind, the Crusades
for the recovery Of the Holy Land are perhaps,
held to be the most remarkable /; and yet it would
be easy to show that these strange expeditions, de-
struct1ve of the very cause pretended for them,
Christianity, and not less rnnous to the lands which
they left than to those over which they spread
ravage and death, were popular folly most like,
in several great points, to this Mexican War, and not
whit more preposterous. The Crusades were
for the recovery of what Europe had never pos
sessed and had no title to; the made for
the ]" remuneration " of that which we had never
possessed, nor owned and had renowned. A her
nit mad and shallow, preached the one over
Jealous theorists of slavery the other. Popes, be-
eving that these expeditions would profit their
power, urged them on Presidents, for the same
end, lent all the influence and every "pious fraud
of our Government to the Mexican crusade. They
who argued against the morality or the benefits of
the Holy War were stigmatlzed atheists and
those who plead to not to ruin ourselves in at
tempting to ruin our neghbors, are denounced as
" moral traitors" The laws Of whole kingdoms
were overturned, and half their property put into
mortmain, to carry on that old attempt; our con-
situations set aside, public wealth all mort
gagged to sustain the new one. Monarchs laid down
the care of their dominions, and great feudatories
sold their vassals TO run TO Palestine our Prince
can do nothing good at home, lest the means for
foreign mischief should be lacking. And, finally,
above all, them while Peter the Hermit preached
to superstitious throngs desolation in the Of
Religion, cry from some fool in the crowd arose,
" II is the will of God - and was instantly caught
up and resounded through all Christendom, an
authentic voice OF the Most High so now some
equally respectable confdant of the Divine DEGREES
has beloved 10 the prudent populace that to con-
quer all this continent is our Manifest Destiny =
and, behold that shallow and impious phrase passes
for received decree of Fate! Manifest" for
sooh What is manifest, and 10 whoml What
prophet or saint hath spokenl To whom have the
dark DEGREES of Heaven been made manifest" in
the visions Of some new apocalypse Verify, no
prophet at ALL by any Of the old marks of prophecy;
for, among all the high messengers of God TO men,
yh prp lie ona rhn m uafta had