The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-10-28
Gen. John A. Dix on the True Cause
Of our National Calamities.

Gen. John A. DIX on the True Cause
Of our National Calamities.
The following extracts from a recent
letter of Major General ok affords food
for men Of all parties to digest at their
leisure: - e<
Does any one doubt as to the true cause
OF our national calamities2 believe it
to De found in the management of the
leaders OF both the principal political par
ties during the last quarter of a cent?,
In 1910 the great men of the Wing party
Webster, Clay and others-men of uni
versally acknowledged ability and long
experience in civil life-were thrust aside
and Gen. Harrison, a man of very mod.
crate capacity, was selected as its candi-
date for the Presidency. The principle
of availability, as it was termed, was
adopted as the rule of selection, and the
question of fitness became obsolete. The
concern was to know, not who was best
qualified to administer the government,
but who, from his comparative obscurity,
would be least likely to provoke an en-
Uttered opposition. This was the begin
ming of a system of decentralization which
has ended in the present distracted con-
ditlon OF the country. 1t reversed all the
conservative principles of human action
by prescribing talent and experience
and browning mediocrity with the high
est honors of the republic. In 1914 the
Democratic party followed the success
full example of it's opponents in 1910. It
put aside Van Buren,, Cass, Marcy and its
other eminent statesmen, and brought for
ward Mr.. Polka man of merely ordina-
ry ability. Parties who have neither the
courage nor the virtue to stand by their
greatest and best men soon fall into hope
less decentralization. This system of re-
trogradation in all that is manly and Just
has continued, with two or three abortive
efforts at reaction, for twenty-four years.
1t has driven pre-eminent talent out of the
paths which lead to the highest political
distinction; and multitudes, with sim
plicity that would be ludicrous were it not
SO deplOrable, ask what has become of our
great men. The inquiry is easily answered.
They are in the learned professions-in
science. literature and art, and in the num-
berless fields of intellectual exertion which
are opened by the wants of great coun-
try IN rapid career of development. The
intellect of the country is neither dimin-
ished in the aggregate nor dwarfed in its
Individual proportions. The political mar
ket, like the commercial, under the intlu-
ence of the inhexible law of demand and
supply, is furnished with the kind of ma
terial it requires. 1t calls for mediocrity,
and it gets nothing better The highest
talent goes where it is a passport to the
highest rewards. 1t withdraws from
field in which the chance of accession to
the first civic honor is in an inverse ratio
of eminence and qualifications.
Thus, under the rule of the inferior in
tellects which party management has ele-
waited to the conduct of the public affairs,
the peace, the prosperity and the high
character of the country have gone down.
If the great men Of the republic had con-
trolled the policy and action of the gov
eminent during the last quarter of a CEN
fury we should have had no rebellion.
Distraction from within invites aggression
from without; and we are enduring the
humiliation of seeking monarchy estab.
lished in contact with our Southern boun-
dairy by one of the great Powers of Europe
in contempt of our repeated protestations,
and another of those Powers permitting
rebel cruisers to be armed in her ports to
depredate on our commerce.
Under such system Of political man
agement no government can last long. l
know it is not easy to change what such a
lapse of time has fastened upon us. Poll
ticians have the strongest int rest in plac-
ing in the chair of State feeble men, whom
they can control, instead Of men of self
sustaining power, to whom they would be
mere subordinates and auxiliaries. But
the time will comet may not be far dis
tant-when the people, tired of voting for
men of inferior capacity, thrust upon them
through the machinery of conventions Gin
which they have no voice., will rise in
their majesty and place the conduct of their
affairs in more experienced and capable
hands. If such change is not speedily
effected, it is my firm belief that our re-
publican institutions will fall to pieces, and
an arbitrary government rise upon their
ruins; for, unless the testimony of all his
tory is to be discarded, no political system
can be upheld except by giving to its adj
ministration the benefit of the very highest
talent and the largest experience.
Till this return shall come, my advice to
the great body of the people is to hold
fast to their Evolutionary principles and
good name by giving an earnest support
to the war, and to scan with the severest
scrutiny the conduct of those who control
party movements. Many of the men who
are most prominent in conventions have
personal interests to subserve. Even those
who are comparatively disinterested are
not always the safest advisers. They have
lived so long in the turbid atmosphere of
party excitement and party traffic that
they have contracted morbid habits of
thought and action, which, like chronic
diseases in the human system, it is hard to
alleviate and still harder to cure. The
only hope left to US lies in the patriotism
and disinterestedness of the great body of
the people of all parties, who are facing
the enemies Of their country on the battle
field, with heroism unsurpassed in any
aUa Or who of hOyno ov,c;J H. ,,coyo;1ino