The daily mountaineer. (Dalles, Or.) 1861-1866, 1865-08-20
rHn Cosr or LIRERTY.

"Eterual vigilance is the price Of Liberty"
is an old maxim, which, ia these days, says
the San Francisco C4l, might be aptly chang
ed SO as to read, "Eterual electioneering IS
the prIcs OF Liberty Iii, serious question
for consideration. Are we not paying too
great a price for such liberty as we enjoy
or rather could we not SO arrange matters as
to enjoy more real liberty at less price, and
with less troubef As political affairs are
now worked, il is absolutely necessary for
people to make themselves slaves to politics
TO maintain their civil liberties and natural
rights. The public mind must be kept ever
on the alert to protect its liberties. Politics
demand full half of the time Of men; and men
obey /; for if they did not, their liberties would
be in danger. Sleeping or waking eating or
drinking, riding or walking the inexorabie
master, Politics. compels the attention of
his obedient and liberty-oving subjects.
He forces them to spout nonsense on the
forum, to write trash in the sarctum, to dis
cuss foolshiy in bar-rooms, to swill lager and
guzzle whisky in saloons, to vrangle at the
street corners, to cheat each o. her in eonven-
tions, to lie about each other daring election
campaigns, to talsify records, to blacken char
acters, to defame regulations, to scotf religion
| tity Of domestic life, to hold nothing sacred,
to hold all sentiments dear except honor, 10
shed blood for shadows, and expend nothing
for substances-all these things politics de.
taands OF his slavish subjects, as the price Of
liberties. ls not the price q fearful one to pay
for an article which is ever eludipg the grasp
and frequently not clutched at all2 Is there
among the people enough wisdom to devise q
plan by which they can, at the same time,
perpetuate their liberties and reiease them
selves from the thraldom of that modern
American tyrant, politics? Is it necessary,
for the preservation of our civil rights and
liberties, that we should 20 on till the crack
of doom, slanderiug and villifying each other,
cheating, wranglng and quarrelling, derid-
ing truth and deifying falsebood, fouting
honor in the face and blackening our. lives
and histories by the meanest Of acts2' Can
we not enjoy real and rational Liberty without
falsifying the acts of our opponents, lying
about our neighbors and publishing vile Sian.
ders Of those we do not like withoat cheat
ing each other in conventions and swiudliug
each other on every possible occasion2 We
believe our liberties can be preserved without
resorting to such disgraceful proceedings
which increase with alarming rapidity as
years roll by, and which are really the wors,
) enemies OF republican institutions, because il
persisted in they are calculated to destroy
| them by destroying all public confidence, up
roofing all belief in private or public virtue
by arraying man against man, citizen agains
citizen, brother against brother, in bitter hos
Q tility, and finally leading to anarchy, th,
Q grave of all republics. Fellow-citizens, th,
price we are paying for our Liberties is to'
dear-so dear that we- cannot keep up the in
stalments without bankrupting our moral
q and honor, and when we are bankrupt o
e these articles, then farewell, a long farewell
4 to our liberties. Their gbastly spectres will
only remain as monuments of our follies an,
wickedness, and on our national tombston
=. future generations will write this epitaph
: "Here lies Republic, whose citizens pa
too great price for their liberties, and thu
sacrificed their institutions"