New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-06-16
POLITICIANS BY TRADE.


The Southern Press, the organ OF that
party which regards Slavery as about the
best of human institutions, propounds
lesson to the young men of the country in
view of the doings at the Loco-Foco
slaughter. house, recently held at Balti-
more. This lesson is based on the state
ment that the greatest men are not taken
for Presidential candidates, and according
ly, instead of advising its pupils to try not
TO be great men, it proceeds TO give them
the far more wholesome counsel to take
stand for independence of thought, and to
pursue each his own pathway to honor and
fame along the line of his own views OF
truth and duty,
Excellent advice this, but we do not per-
ceive its relation to the fact that great
political leader does not often become Pres
ident. What if statesmanlike genius and
long service in public affairs do not secure
the Presidency to Gen. Cass or Mr.. Bu-
chanan! How does that hold out additional
inducements to young men, or old men
either, not to be fools or rascals We
can't perceive the point of the argument.
The accusation so often brought against
the people, that they ungratefully abandon
the great men to heap their honors on OBJ
scure ones, is not well founded. The fact
is that our present vicious party machinery
gives the people very little to say in the
premises, and produces results which
would not be heard Of, were the people
permitted freely to express their prefer
ence. Had the voters of the Loco-Foco
party, for instance, been allowed to vote at
the ensuing election, according to their
personal convictions, without the inter-
vention of Slaug hter-house, how many
of them would have supported Franklin
Pierce? Very few, if any. And Gen.
Cass and Mr.. Buchanan would have under
gone no such burking as that they have now
had to bear. They might have been beat
en- at the polls, bat they would still have
received large and respectable popular
vote. The day will come, we trust,
when Slaug hter- house dictation will be
abrogated, and the elections managed dem
ocratically by the people themselves.
Meanwhile, it is not fair to charge the
masses with what is perPetrated by in
triguers and wire-pullers.
Still, we are not sure that were the cleo
ton left to the people, as it ought to be,
those politicians who have most prominent
ly worked to get the Presidency would al
ways receive it. Men who aim at an of
flee are sometimes apt to neglect other and
higher aims, and to sacrifice independence
of thought and their own views of truth
and duty to the hope of getting the votes
of some clique or section. 1t is not eve
ny great politician to whom it is given to
say with truth that he had rather be right
than be President. There are men, and
eminently and richly endowed men, who
make of politics a trade, and who seek to
put the profits thereof in their own private
pockets. Such men the people suspect,
and feel little enthusiasm for. This is the
reasonwhymilitary candidates areprefened
by the masses, who honor distinguished
public services of every kind, but feel safe
above all with man who with great abili-
ties and memorable career has not ex-
posed his integrity to any of the stains
which are so often acquired in the more
tortnnns and difficult snhere of nnlitics-