Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1858-11-27


which every sound politician and every honest
thinker must sooner or later subject himself
Fools and dead men are the only people who
never change their opinions their course of
action. The course of great statesmen resem-
blcs that of navigable rivers, avoiding immova-
bic obstacles with noble bends of concession,
seeking the broad levels of opinion on which
men-soonest settle and longest dwell, following
and marking the almost imperceptible slope of
national tendency, yet forever recruited from
sources nearer heaven, from SUBMITS where the
gathered purity of ages lies encamped, and some
times bursting open paths of progress and civil
!ization through what seem the enternal barriers
of both. 1t is loyalty to great ends, an an
chored cling to solid principles, which knows
how to swing with the tide, but not to be car
ried away by it, that we demand in public men,
and not persistence in prejudice, sameness of
policy, or stolid antagonism to the inevitable
But we demand also that they shall not too light
ly accept Wrong instead Of hight, as inevitable
and there is kind of change that is suspicious
because it is sudden,-and detrimental TO the
character in proportion as it is of advantage to
the man; and the judgment of mankind allows
well-tounded distinction between an alteration
OF policy compelled by events, and an abandon
ment of professed principles tainted with any
suspicion of self-interest. We hold that Rep
resentatve is a trustee for those who elected
him,-that his political apostasy only SO far de-
serves the name OF conversion as it is conver-
sion of what was not his to his own use and ben
cit and we have right te be impatient of in
struction in duty from those whom the hope of
promotion could nerve to make the irrevocable
leap from a defeated party to triumphant one,
and who can serve either side, if so they only
serve themselves. 1t is this kind Of freedom
from prejudice that has brought down our pol
itics to the gambling level of the stock-markct
it is this kind of unucky success. and the read
mess of the multitude to forgive and even to ap-
plaud it, that Justify the old sarcasm, PdtiJuiam
inter d statuam guam lere discrimen'
1t is not for inconsistencies of policy in mat
terS of Indifference that we should blame man
or a party, but for making questions of honor
and morals matters Of Indifference lnconsis-
tcncy is to be settled, not by seeming discrep-
ancies between the action of one day and that
of the next but by the experience which enables
us to judge of motives and impulses. Time,
which reconciles apparent contradictions, i'm
peached real ones, and shows a malicious satiri-
cal turn, in forcing men into positions where
they must break their own necks in attempting
to face both ways Nor p it for inconsistency
that we condemnthe Democratic Party There
are no trade-winds for the Ship of State, unless
it be navigated by higher principles than any
the political metcoroogsts have yet discovered.
But there have been mysterious movements, of
late, which raise violent presumption that our
Democratic captain and officers are altering the
rg and adapting the hold of the vessel to suit
the demands of a traffic condemned by the whole
civilized world. They are painting out the old
name. letter by letter, and putting "Conserva-
tive" in its stead. They seem to fancy there is
such a thing as Il slave trade-wind, and are at
tempting TO beat up against what they profess
L,1,n l.. 4 e La
delusion. We think they are destined to find
that they are striving against the invincible drift
of Humanity and the elemental breath OF God.
ltis an omnous Consistency with which we charge
the Democratic Party.
MI. Gushing afiirms that the Republicans
have no argument but the ''cry of Siaceporer ~
-whiehis as eloquent one as the old Roman S
Deiendd est Cartilage, to those who know how
many years of bitter experience, how many
memories of danger and forebodings of aggres-
sion, are compressed in it. But he is mistaken ;
Democratic administrations have been busy in
supplying arguments, and we complain rather
of their abundance than their paucity. The re-
peal of the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas
policy, which even Office holders who had gulp-
ed their own professions found too nauseous to
swallow, and the bred Scott decsion,-if these
be not arguments, then history is no teacher,
and events have no logic.
Mr.. Gushing adroitly eyades the real matter
in issue, and assumes that it is mere question
of the relative amount. of federal Office secured
by the North and the South respectively. This
may be very natural view of the case in man
whose map of nationality would seem to be
bounded North by seat in Congress, East by
a Chinese Embassy, West by an Attorney Cen
eralship, and South by the vague line of future
contingency; but it hardly solves the difficulty.
With characteristic pluck he takes the wolf by
the ears. The charge being, that the power OF
the Slave States has been gaining steady pre-
ponderance over that of the Free States by
means of the federal administration, he answers
it by saying that he has made it subject OF
'philosophic study" and has found that Mass
achusetts has had "pretty fair run of the pow
er of the Union, whatever that may be.
The phrase is unfortunate, forit reminds one too
much Of the handsome competence with which
father once claimed to have endowed his son
in giving him the run Of the streets since he was
able to 20 alone. But let us test Mr.. Cushing's
logic by an equivalent proposition. He is exc
cutor we will suppose, of an estate TO be diyid-
ed among sixteen heirs he pays A his portion,
and claims a discharge in full. What would
not Mr.. Buchanan give for a receipt by which
office seekers could be cheaply satisfied
"Phlosophic study to be sure 1t may be
easy for gentlemen the chief part of whose pro-
ductVe industry has been the holding OF Office
or the preparing of their convictions for the re-
ceipt of more, to be philosophic; but it is not
so easy for Massachusetts to be satisfied, when
she sees only those of her children so rewarded
who misrepresent her long cherished principles,
who oppose the spread of her institutions, who
mock at her sense of right and her hereditary
love of freedom, and are willing to accept place
as an equivalent for the loss of her confidence
The question, Who is in office ? may be of pri-
mary importance to Mr. Cushing, but is of little
consequence to the Free States. What con-
Germs them is, How and in what interest are the
offices administered? lfto the detrment of free
institutions, then all the worse that's sons of theirs
can be found to do that part of the work which
involves (as affairs are now tending) something
very like personal dishonor. 1t is no matter Of
pride to us that the South has never been able
to produce sailor skilful enough and bold
enough to take command of SLAYER.
Mr. Gushing affects to see in the history o.
the Slavery Agitation nothing but series Of
injuries inflicted by the North on the South
He charges "some of the Northern States" with
acts of aggression upon the South" which would
have been just cause of war as between foreign
governments" He prudently forbears to name
I Il