Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-04-22
HONESTY BETTER THAN POLICY.


CARLYLE makes it as a charge against AL
bert the Handsome, otherwise called Albert
the Bear, that, while he was accomplishing a
great many excellent things for Brandenburg,
by the force of his genius and the favor of
events, he was, in times of least necessity a
restless, much-managing, underwriting mar"
He was the type and representative of that
near-sighted humanity, perpetuating itself
from one generation to another without much
Improving its sight, which magnifics the little
celebrates, kingdoms, and republics where it
happens to be planted into places of especial
privilege and honor, which no alien foot can
touch without sacrilege, and no alien hand
claim without blood. 1t is the manifestation
of this sublime and magnificent egotism, which
has caused most of the fighting in this world,
and has made most of our histories the mere
chronicles of battles that they are, enlvened
with brief intervals of sunshine and peace.
On this side of the Atlantic, and since the
establishment of government, the old proscrip-
ton has been itself prescribed. Magnanimity
has been the purifying agency of our society,
liberation of our religion, and equality of our
government. How glorious the result has
been, can be seen in the memorable facts that,
in less than a century the Republic counts its
subjects by millions, estimates its power by the
side of the Oldest and the best governments of
the world, while its territories of mountain,
valley, and plain, connecting the two oceans,
and extending from the St. Lawrence to the
borders of perpetual summer, embrace richer
fields of undevcloped agricultural and mineral
wealth than any other country on the face of
the earth. Institutions of charity, education,
and religion, have grown up among us, strong,
healthy, and invincible. No one errs for the
want of good influences No one is ignorant
for the want of opportunities. No one is lost
where he can be reached and saved. This is the
rule. 1t is not inyalidated but strengthened by
the sad and terrible exception of slavery.
1t is because the policy of the government
has been sincerely and honestly carried out,
that the experiment of selfgovernment has
been so successful No calamity has happen
ed within the lives of those who now expert
ence its blessings, to weaken their faith in the
wisdom of that policy. In periods of calm and
sober judgment, looking over the immeasura-
BILE prosperity which in spite of our many mis-
takes rests upon all our borders, and remem-
bering that we owe it all to the wise and pure
Democracy of our fathers, which holds out the
promise of protection and equal rights to men
wherever humanity suffers, who is prepared to
say that the policy was too liberal, and must
now be changed. Carl Shurz, with scarcely
seven years experience of free institutions,
touched the secret of the whole controversy
in which the people of Massachusetts are now
interested, when he warned them against los
ing sight of fundamental principles when pass
ing abuses are to be corrected. Here we have
the theory of political dreamers for many gen.
erations put into successful practice. We
have proved that men are more useful
as citizens than as prescribed class. We
have shown by the comparative perfection
of the democratic system that citizens
are most useful, when, in matters which
concern them all alike, they are placed on a
basis of absolute and entire equality The
fore applied, as long ago as the time of Edward
the Second. "Surely," exclaimed the sturdy
reformer, ''it is burning daylight to prove that
if the old law keeps not the word of promise
to the ear only, it did intend to entail upon the
whole body of the realme and upon every par
ticular member thereof the right, either in per-
son or by representation, to be present in the
High Court of Parliament where their con-
sent was to be given" Under new circum-
stances, this has become peculiarly the Amer-
lean principle. And yet for the sake of cor
recting purely local abuses of the suffrage &C.
casioned by the violation of existing stat
utes, it is proposed to overthrow the funda-
mental principle of Democratic government,
and deprive class of future population, with
out reference to character, intelligence, or
knowledge of our institutions, of the privileges
ana duties OF citizenship, long after they have
become citizens.
The proposition was certainly not meant as
an assault on the republican theory of the
right of suffrage. In period of political dis
organization and confusion, when some how or
other men born of the willow rose up and
pushed from their stools men born of the oak,
it was contrived as a political expedient for
the sake of its indirect effect on an opposing
party But with injustice only paraIeled by
its folly the contemplated legislation was made
general, covering with its cloud of prescription
men of all politics, the illiterate and the cult
waited, those loving liberty and those who
would vote for slavery.
In a modified form the same measure is be-
fore us to-day. Time, the wise corrector of
impulses; thought, the sagacious detector of
blunders; circumstances, which direct wise
statesmen in matters of policy, all have united
to establish, that, to discriminate between citi-
zens on account of the place of their birth is
wrong in principle, is unjust in its application,
is suicidal as measure of political policy.
The Republican Party in Massachusetts is
but small part of that organization which is
rapidly maturing for a national triumph
But it is large enough to inlict wounds from
which it may not soon recover.
The BosToN BEE of Wednesday morning
says of the Two Years Amendment 1--WE
would have been better pleased, personally,
had the amendment fixed one year instead of
two, for we believe that one year would have