The mountain Democrat. [volume] (Placerville, El Dorado County, Calif.) 1863-1943, 1865-03-11
The American Charastsr.

ne A~OEAG0n Sh1G90toEs
The sad truth begins at last to dawn
upon men, and Winter Davis expressed
it in the House BY the words. ''the Amer.
ican character is being broken down. ~
For that result we are indebted to the
party which Mr.. Davis has used for per.
sonal purposes, and which, in turn. has
used him for its purposes. No man who
quietly surveys society, and listens to
what is said, or sees what is passing
around him, fails to recognize that the
characteristics of citizen Of the United
States are very different from what they
we're four years ago.
Then the predominant passion, almost
the life blood Of every man, was the belief
that he had rights, hich he was justified
in maintaining at the cost of life to the
aSsailant and which were above govern
ment and above society even. The pecn.
liar difference between him and the citi,
zen OF every other community was an in
dividuality, Of which his system guaran-
tced him the exercise.
The very fact that we allowed the na.
tiveborn BritOn, Of his own free will, to
abandon his BIRTH land, and adopt ours,
and would have defended his choice by a
war Of twenty years, vas the. strongest
proof We could give of the prednminAncs
Of the feeling we allude to. An arbitrary
arrest by government, under any circum-
stances. would have aroused an angry
feeling throughout the land, and no man
would have dared, who hoped for political
position, to do anything but denOunce it.
So changed have we become, that if Eve
leading cOpperheads were burned in Mad.
iSon square, without trial or charge, seven
out Of ten Loyal Leaguers would justify
the auto da fe as an irregular but proper
exercise Of military necessity. The love
Of liberty which to our fathers was worth
all the political fabrics ever created, has
become as obsolete as silver quarter. -
or course we mean liberty for ourselves.
The southern black has the freedom ol
choice still. He can stay With his master,
or be conEcripted in the army. The
stranger who visits Paris or Vienna sees
no more despotism than he sees in New
York. Everybody seems to be truly bis
own master as in Boston. Well.dressed
PO'lbC n" u htio OlICCtS1 OuSIICSS
thriveS, the streets are ORDERLY, the peo-
pie polite, the officials affable; but he
hears of some workman being notified to
leave Paris, because be has, under a vim
Gus exhilaraton, said something deroga-
tory of the Emperor, and thereupon the
visitor feels strange, uncomfortable
dread q cold, uneasy sense Of shame q
consciousness of Dead Sea fruit; and be
loves more strongly than ever the land
where everything was clear and defined
within limits which he knew, and within
which so long as he kept he was lord OF
himself We have hravely changed all
that. We are in the exact condition of
the dog in the fable, who, swapping ot the
shadow Of meat in the water, lost the
piece he was carrying in his mouthI--
Maryland has abolished slavery at the
price Of existing as Poland exists under
Russia. Louisiana has abolished slavery
by becoming as thoroughly rotten bor-
ough as any al East India nabob ever
carried in his breecheS pocket. Missouri
has abolished slavery at the cost Of so
cial existence worse than that OF Mexico.
Kentucky is under a military rule as ab-
sOlute and violent rs that of pacha in
Greece, Of the times when our hearts were
fired by the tale Of the massacre at Scio.
For every slave freed by the new
Christians of the Seward. Lincoln school,
two men have been killed, one thousand
dollars spent, one white man made in
turn slave, and another white man has
surrendered his former convictions of civil
liberty. Wonderful party, magnificent
craftsmanship! SangradoS of politics,
listen to it. "Sck is the patient, weaker
than before; SO more bleeding, more hot
water"
We'll, the United States is like the Rake
in Hogarth. The inheritance it succeed
ed to was magnificent; it could afford to
entertain its bully and its parasite, and
its fiddler and its tailnrs, and its jockey
and its poet, and its parson, ard laugh at
the old careful steward who looked upon
MONEY as something not too easily earned
and not to be too UEWiSely spent. Its re
sources. like his, seemed inexhaustihlp,
and they who were engaged in spending
them for the heir were careful to tell him
that there was no bottom to his purse
How merry was life while credit could be
had and bills were running up. Does the
reader remember the end Of the Rake and
the desparing, self buffeting madness Of
the last hours in the lunatic asylum p
Three or four years from this time, the
people Of the United States will be ours,
ing their madness as he cursed his, and
will be sitting in the ashes poor as job,
aS full of sores, and realizing, with a cur
rency as worthless rs the continents. and
debt as large as that Of England, that no
vices are SO dangerous as PhariSaic vir.
tues, and that hnmanitarians out Of pow.
er are Robespieres and Marats in power.
More men have been secretly arrested,
and illegally and causelessly confined, in
the United States within the last four
years than were in the Bastile from the
day when it was stormed. Well may
Mr.. Davis say '"the American character
is being broken down." a,.. 5.,.E
..... IN. 7. World.