Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-06-21
spECuLAToRs IN POLITICS.

SPECTATORS IN POLITICS.
1t may be as wild notion to think of hav-
ing party without spectators, as a garden
without weeds The New Atlantis may rise
out of the sea before mankind will learn that
justice is the only immutable foundation for
governments, and for parties which make gov
ernments Virtue, says the preacher cannot
be practiced without sacrifice. In politics as
well as in morals, it seems the chief end of
many to make their virtue cost as little as pos
sible; of some to discover expedients by which
it may cost them nothing at all, and of few
to sell out altogether, with the wild expecta-
ton of making something out of their new Ac-
eldama. But whether it is possible or not to
purge political parties altogether of such spec
ulators in their jewels, it is high public duty
to protect them with as much care as possible.
AT the approach of every general election it
is customary to hear questions of policy and
management discussed with as much hippancy
and conceit as if there were no principles
which might not be easily laid aside for the
sake Of winning to the party the support of di-
verse and sometimes hostile factions. If po-
itical organizations were, like piratical crafts,
set afoat for the purpose of making reprisals,
it would be good policy to throw overheard
whatever encumbers them whenever reprisals
are to be made. Fortunately the mass of man
kind are not freebooters, men enlisted for an
adventure, and to be tempted out of their
course by the prospect of a merely Temporal
ry advantage. And they are not at all likely
to look on with patience, if any of the crew
should attempt to scuttle the ship in the first
shadow of storm.
To return to the shore parties in Repub-
lie are formed for specific and welldefned pur-
poses, or they are not parties. When they
lose sight of them they begin to decay. Bold
men in bad cause are stronger than compro
missing men in a good one. 1t is confession
of humiliating weakness to Offer on the APP
proach of an important struggle, terms which
imply a concession of purpose for the support
of thosewho are not sincerely and voluntarily
with us. There is one melancholy example of
suicide in the history of American politics
which is not too old to serve for warning.
Boswell, "when he was young and wore
white cockade," used to pray for 10 Rlam6S;
till one day his rich uncle off |a
ling if he would pray for Il
he accordingly did On th
biographer of DR.. johnson ~
strangely prophetic comment
that Wings of all ages are madg
way" Let those who are organized u aa'NH4
a nobler purpose than ever entered fntel
contemplation of the best of them, see that the
same experiment is not tried again.
For the Republican party the obvious policy
is the straight forward one. TWAS not formed
accidentally, like the anti-Masonic and the
Know Nothing parties, but to meet grave ma
tional necessity. Various agencies have at
tempted feebly to oppose the terrible and de-
structve power which controls the federal
government. But their opposition has not
been founded upon any accurate estimate of
the work, and they have reiterated one by one
into the shade. The new organization came
into s1Nisto44ee the y i.sI tho
lessness of all others, as means of making the
government the fortress of free principles, had
been established. 1t is the representative of
the sentiment favorable to rational liberty and
equal rights on this continent. 1t may strive
to carry Presidential election; to prevent
the extension of slavery to reverse the in
famous bred Scott decision to repeal the in
sulting and atrocious Fugitive Slave law; and
much more. Perhaps not all in a yenr, per-
haps not in a decade. But they are all incl
dental to that lofty and impregnable policy
which, when it is fully carried out, will
leave no slave in the land
Young as the party is, it has maturity of
purpose which will be quite likely to resist any
attempt, however insidious, to divert it from
its aim. Spectators in political movements
will lose much valuable time and labor in in
dulging in the vain expectation of generalizing
its principles till they mean nothing but cop
position" with the hope of sailing into a near
er port upon smoother sea. 1t cannot sue
ceed Better for them, better for the good
cause which they try to manage" into the
sunshine, if they had deeper and more earn
est faith in the strength of right principles
While they are gambling for success which
may prove to be disaster, God is opening the
way for the triumph of his own armies. JUS
tice is the great standing policy of civil socie.
ty; and any eminent departure from it, under
any circumstances lies under the suspicion of
being no policy at all.