Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1858-12-18
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SATURDAY MORNING, DEC. Is, 1858
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND OFFICIAL COR
RUPTI0N.

The London Times continues editorally to hold up the
corruption which prevails among officials in the United
States as a warning against the adoption of universal
suffrage
1t is unfortunate that we should give the old
world so many occasions to rebuke us. Fair
pretenses and false practices never win admi-
ration or command respect Professions of
equality and institutions of caste and oppres-
sion, form such palpable contradiction, that
well-informed people of other nations are ac-
customed to look to us for an example of ma
tional duplicity. 1t is not remarkable that the
vices incident to our system of government
should sometimes be attributed to a radical de-
Aciency in the system itself For Englishmen,
jealous of the success of the American plan of
government, in spite of its organic sins, it is
the most natural thing in the world to exclaim
against Republicanism, and hold up these Incl
dental offenses as the bugbears to frighten timid
monarchists, and check the growing sentiment
in favor of the progressive party at home.
But it is very bad logic, to attribute our faults
tn the operation of the chief and fundamental
virtue of our system. Universal suffrage has
no other connection with official immortality,
than the blessed sunshine has with roots and
weeds whose secretions are poison Go into
cultivated garden, where long, straight, uniform
rows of trees thick with foliage and heavy
with fruit meet the eye on all sides you will
find here and there crooked, gnarled crab-apple
trees-Calibans of the orchard-forcing them
selves into the sunshine, or skulking in the
shade; yet what atheist would denounce the
sun, the wind, and the rain, on account of
them7 Moral virtue is one of the incidents of
human nature; and human nature is not sub
ject to political institutions or forms of govern
ment. Tendencies to immortality will come to
the surface in republics as well as in monarch
les, not on account of any peculiar formation
of the crusts of government, but because they
were there before the crust was formed.
We have historical presidents of this kind
without number. In the beginning of the
reign of the Georges, the historian tells us,
BRIBERY in Parliament and corruption in Office
had become so universal, and the spirit Of pub
lie men so sordid, that the cry of the horse
leech, Give! givep was heard everywhere"
twas at that time, Walpole, of long experience
in the art and practice of bribery, exclaimed,
"all men have their price" patriots" said
he, 'spring up like mushrooms. 1 could
raise fifty of them in twenty-four hours.
have made many of them in single night"
The elder and incorruptible Pitt came on the
stage at that time. ellis character astonished
a corrupt age" When he was minister, later
in life, and had elevated by his pure example
the character of public men, and made them
ashamed of the disgrace of bribery, the
younger Walpole wrote in private letter, and
with the sincerity of friendship, "The man-
unity of public men is prodigiOus. You will
as soon hear NO from an old maid as from the
House of Commons. The parliament has
come to town; no politics. Votes, under par
Patriots, no price. Ogatory, books shut. =
The idea of universal suffrage had then no
existence save in the hope of refOrmers or the
dream of enthusiasts.
Under our system in which the idea has
been partially developed there has been par
tial reform. In general terms the people are
more virtuous than their leaders. If gambler
or a cheat gets into official position he does
it in the disguise of an honest man. If legisla-
ture is bought up by railroad, the people are
sure to dispose of their interest in both, at the
earliest opportunity. If an officer takes a
bride, or gives one for the sake of gain, he
receives immediate leave to enjoy his advan-
tage at home. This is the beauty of popular
suffrage. The temptations to which public
men are exposed is the bane of civil govern
ment; their direct and immediate accounta-
bility to the people is the antidote.
In practice, ours is still a limited suffrage,
though it is called universal. There is room
for hope that when, in the progress of liberal
ideas, it shall become in fact universal, as it
is in name, when all the mature and intelligent
subjects of government, by whatever accidents
Of race, color, and sex, their sphere of action
may have been hitherto circumscrbed, shall
have an equal voice in its direction and con-
troll, we shall have government free as any
upon the face of the globe-free from oppres-
sion, free from corruption, and free from the
inconsistencies and contradictions, which often
expose US to the shame of the civilized world.