Weekly national intelligencer., 1852-02-07
TO THE EDITORS.

MEssRss.6A ALEs SEAToN: would respectfully
submit the following questions
First May not an american believe that few or
foreign nations are yet it for republican nsti-
tutons without being guilty of treason to the cause
of repubcanism and thereby losing his right to be
considered wholesome member of the American
nation? 4ss
Second: Is not that American more thoroughly,
essentially American, who does believe that the only
republicanism is the people Of this country, than
another who asserts that I" the rest of mankind"
are quite as capable of it as are?
Third May not an American prefer to see in
Europe even despotism which secures certain
amount of order and prosperity than Government
which, though called republican, is productive Of
nothing but confusion and evil?
Fourth Is republicanism an end or only means
obtaIiqg national welfare? and, if the latter, is
- unwise and unchristian to wish its establish
ment in countries where ii viii verify the old Ba-
CONAN maxim, Optima naturd psssina perversiosse
| Fifth Are not those the worst enemies of genu-
me republcanism who advocate and extol its coun-
tereit and thus make it responsible for all the evil
of the latter?
| Sixth: Have not the republicans of Europe done
more to make republicanism there "sinell to
Heaven" than all the thrones and Powers combined ?
Have they not in fact, sacrificed the goddess Liberty
upon her own altar
| Seventh May an American express an opinion
favorable to the recent coup Peat in France cal
culated to produce better results than would have
been consequent upon continuance of the state Of
things which it destroyed?
! Eighth Might he dare just to hint the possibility
that Louis Napoleon is not altogether 50 "replen-
ished viain" as he is pronounced to be for making
the coup aforesaid and that he may, peradyenture,
have had some remote promptings of patriotism in
violating constitution which evidently, from its
treatment by all parties, was made for the express
purpose of being violated and was never uviolated
from the outset?
| Ninth Might he, in the same concatenation, ac-
cordingly venture to think his soul his own, if he
were to allow the slightest suspicion to his
mind that Kossuth is lee2e of a humbug, and not
altogether heterogeneous compound of impossible
| perfections?
Tenth Is not the old poet right who declares
that
| "Opnion
Cannot, matters Of opinion, err y
Eleventh: Is not that the principle theoretically
proclaimed by our Constitution and are we not
practically in regard to opinions the most ntoerant
people, collectively and individually, on earth
| Twelfth Are we not always virtually asserting
that those WHO don't agree with us in opinion, upon
whatever subject foreign domestic, must be either
fools or knaves and might it not be supposed, from
the way in which differences of opinion recipro-
cally denounced by us, that an honest wise man
is rarer bird in the land than the phoenix tselfY
Thirteenth Isn't orthodoxy my doxy, and hetero-
doxy your doxy, from Maine to Louisiana, and all
the way round!
Fourteenth Will you have the goodness to pub
lish the foregoing pertinent or mpertinent queries,
and oblige AN INQUIRER