The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1858-01-26
AMERICAN AR1sTocRAcY.

disposition to ascribe peculiar merit to
certain families or classes of individuals,
will a belief that this merit does not die
with its possessor, but descends to his pos
terity. Ina ancient days, men who cameo
distinction in battle or in council, received
titles of nobility. Some, who had power to
do so, themselves assumed such titles, and
transmitted them to their descendants.
Thus noble families first arose; lapse OF
time confirmed their rights, and they were
over afterward regarded as superior to
those who had been less fortunate in the
proves, or wisdom, or good fortune of their
ancestors.
Nothing can demonstrate more clearly
the folly of such distinctions than the ca
PRECIOUS laws regulating hereditary de-
scent, which leave to the ancestor no choice
of representative, but regulate such rep
resentatien by arbitrary rule.
However ridiculous hereditary nobility
may be, it is clearly necessary to the exist
ence of monarchy, of which it forms the
chief support; and when the subjects of the
old European despotisms make up their
minds to destroy the enc, the other must
die in its company. But our republic needs
no such support. Our form Of government
does net require nobility to sustain it. No
such class is recognized by our Constitu-
ton. There is no privileged order to stand
between the Executive and the people, to
act as a check upon the despotism of the
one, and to resist tho bold eneroachments
of the other.
The law of hereditary descent, if at all
tenable, should apply equally we'll to the
inheritance of good and bad, mental and
moral traits. 1t would be as just to as
sumo that a man inherits all his parents
bad qualities, as that he inherits all their
good ones. Bat we do not find that such
Inheritance follows any rule whatever. We
man is not necessarily bad, and that the
son Of a man distinguished for pure moral
ity, or for powerful mind, is not, of neces-
sity, moral or intellectual. 1t has even
been remarked that the children of great
men are generally below the ordinary level
and this would seem in many cases to be
the result, not of any natural deficiency of
intellect, but of that ruineus pride of an
vance of those afflicted with it. They
seem to think the glory of their ancestors
enough for their whole race, to infnity-
that it is possession to eternity" and,
psralyzed by this idea, they make no ex-
ertion for personal Improvement. and sink
into insigniicance.
1t was we'll said by a distinguished Eng
lishman, that if man depend upon the
glory Of his ancestors, the best part Of him
IS In the Craze. 1t is indeed true that, when
we make no efforts for our own advance
ment, we die premature deaths, and are
buried in the tombs of our fathers. As
the worth of relatives and friends, but not
such pride as will merge our whole exist
ence into theirs. On the other hand, if we
can feel no pride in our ancestors, it should
be no cause of discouragement, but rather
an Indictment to mako for ourselves place
in the esteem of men. the more glorious
because then all our own.
Napoleon, whose clear mind saw tie fol-
~ of family pride, and who was justly
prouder of himself than of his race, when a
silly friend attempted to prove him of roy
al descent, wrote to him to stop his re-
searches, telling him he was the first Of
his family"
There is a Spanish saying that he is not
a gentleman who cannot trace his descent
from his grandfather. Many an American
would object to the application of such a
rule to himself, lest, in ascending the fam
lily thread, he should find it. as SAKE humor-
ously says, "waxed at the other end by
some plebcian VOCATION or lest, in tracing
his family line. it should be found to lend
in moose of stronger Irvine" that suddenly
ended the career of some one of his ances-
tors.-IHe Globe.