Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1853-03-10
troia .Ls \ Y York iTlibaRa.
TILE hESrIkIES tF THE KEpftBftc.


+ in his inaugural speech. "undsr which have
been called 10 preside orer The deslinies The
Republic, fill me with profound sense of the
responsibility" &c. We must object point
blank to this reading of the Presidential Office
1.-The world is governed too much" say the
Democratic organs, aud we are quite of that
| opinion. If our form OF Government have any
distinctive beauty and force, it arises from the
comparative dimnution of the powers of the Ex-
ecutive and the increase of the importance and
! liberty of the citizen. We have read a lesson to
the world that the Executive is but the servant of
| the people. To call him ''Governor," or even
president is clumsy abuse of exact language,
/ for he is neither the one nor the other, and the
Intelligence ofthe people and the nicer use ofthe
meaning of words may substitute better terms
Than, these adaptations from antiquity. The Pres
ident of the United States does most emphati-
cally not "presde the desttnies" of this
country. To ''preside means to sit over, to
control, to sway, in word. Now, does the De-
m0cracy endorse the sentiment that Mr.. Pierce,
in virtue of his taking oath todo sundry things
almost all ofthem by aud with the advice of the
Senate, presides over the destinies of the thirty
odd States of this confederation! Nicholas l. or
Napoleon LII. could not set out with larger as
sumptions of imperial power than are contained
in this purely democratic" exordium.
The powers of the President, though much
very little. The appointment of some officers,
with Senatorial concurrence, the looking after
the execution of certain laws, do not form pre-
sidence over the destinies of this Republic
After all the power the General Administers
ton is small, compared with the local govern
meut of the country at large, that it would be of
little account if Washington were not a common
centre of political intercourse. Every yeur
lessons the power of the Washington politician
II Il
Heaven!-gone by. No future period will show
lis sort of state dictator in the person of Ran
dolph or Calhoun for the simple reason that the
diffusve education of the people prevents such
an accretion of influence in the hands of individ-
uals.
The wonderful grandeeship of official power
aud responsibility is prettily shown up when
| Harnden carries the mail as well as the Depart
ment; when an electric telegraph line in private
hands reconstructs the business intercourse of the
country, and binds its most distant points in love-
| letters, when the splendid revelation of Private
| Cooperation makes Conventions of Swans, ar
lists, agriculturaists, reormers, philanhropists,
| from all the States, meeting annually ct COM
mon centre agreed upon, dispense with the nine
teen twenteths the accursed machinery which
swells out the hereditary politician of Europe
into such vast proportions. making him the foun.
tain of honor, patronage, direction, and 'sdestny"
| NO, Nf. PRESIDENT; me deStInleS OF this country
are entirely beyond your administration. Do
your best, or your worst, this side of impeach-
ment, and it will not much affect the desti MES
of n country like own, where Capitalization
has no power, and the private action of the citi-
zens is so vast. Indeed, we know of no greater
service that Journalism can render than exhibit.
ing the real value of personal or private Work
and Influence in contradistnction to the old
view of political savonrship. This done, and
she ambition for Office yields to the wider and
nobler field of art and science; and we learn to
call mon great, even though they do not speak
in Congress, or represent Material Interests
Politics revolve chiefly in a Gle. The man
of genius-he who discovers or invents-he who
seizes the new or verifes the obsolete idea! as
more influence over the destinies of the country
than all the common of Presidents The
South was made out of Whitney's cotton gin; The
West out of Fulton's steamboat; and the Union
is more dependent on the cheap literature
of the newspaper press. and the means of its diff
fusion through private capital, than on any or all
changes Of the General Administration.
We trust the insoent assumption of n pres-
dence over the destinies of the Republic may not
find place in any future Inaugural Address
Parma les aueugtes les rois sont borgnos-
'ainong the blind the one-eyed are kings and
in Europe such Gubernatoria trash mny pass, but
| here it cannot.