North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1866-01-10

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to the core, and our independence, in which
we appear to glory, is little more than a
farce. 1t is fact, as patent as the noon
day sun, that free Americans can be, and
are, bought upon election days as readily
as you can buy sheep in the market, and
that the party which has the most money
is the winning one. The tyrant, too, who
employs labor will compel his employees
to vote in the way to suit himself, or dis
charge them from their places. And this
employer call himself free Americana
lover and promoter of civil and religious
freedom! And the men who thus obeys
his behcsts are called freemen, and challenge
the world to admire the liberty of thinking
and acting for themselves, which the insti-
tutions of their country guarantee to them
Am wrong in denouncing this so-called
freedom as farce when such things can
be cited as facts ? What significance, too,
has the common expression which so many
of you have heard, ale can be approach
ed" What does it mean, but that the man
is in the market, and up for the highest
bid NV hearers, if we do not awake to a
full sense of our danger, we will be swept
by this tide of avaice, of grasping cupidity,
which is widening and deepening every
day. into the maelstrom of irrecoverabie
ruin. And then, too, let US see what is the
style, and what the character of the men
who are selected to represent us in the law
making, as well as in the executive depart
ments. What is the first question Not,
as he man of great moral worth-ot
spotless integrity and unfinching courage
in the discharge of his duty-of the proper
intellectual calibre or educational fitness p
Alas, it is only, as he available? Can we
by any means, fair or foul, elect him 7'-
Hence it is that the veriest dolts and most
illiterate ofmen are elected to fill places for
which they have not one qualification, un-
less it be to receive pay for their votes.-
Look in upon your city councils. by
whom are those seats filled ? By your best
citizens-your experienced and staid men
your most honorable and capable financiers
men whom every citizen would be proud
to call our city fathers, not because of their
wealth, but solely on account oftheir emi-
nent qualifications and fitness for the place:
But alas, this is not the case. In many in
stances half fiedged and not half educated
young, and inexperienced men, who have
nothing at stake and nothing to loose, but
everything to gain, and who very rarely
the moral courage to resist the outside
pressure brought to bear upon them, when
for example pet scheme for contracts is
before the people, and who can be a7'.
proached-such, l say, are the persons
elected to fill offices of public trust among
us. Then,again, look in upon the Congress
of the United States Of to-day and COM
pare it. if you have sufficient tcmerity, with
that of thirty years ago. Call up to your
remembrance the mighty men, he intel
lectual giants who then composed that
bodv-men of sterling worth, of unim
peachable integrity-men, the dash o.
whose pen would make thrones tremble
and tyrants grow pale-Webster, Clay Bell,
Benton, Calhoun. McDufie. Cass, Choate
And the lower House, ,too,-what an assem-
blage there met the gaze. Lived there a
man in those halcyon days of the republic
who would have presumed to lobby bill
through in either or both Houses by the
use OF money There are sitting before
me now grey-headed men who know thai
the man who would have ventured such an
attempt upon the integrity of one of the
then representatives of the nation. would
have been roughly and properly.dealt with
I sadly fear the sun of those days has Sc
to rise no more, unless we have an entir,
moral and political reformation.
Another alarming sign of the times i
the growing spirit of INSTRUMENTATION COM
mencing in the family and running through
society in all its ramifcations. Behold th'
veriest boys and girls who throng our tho
roughfares What boisterousness, wha
profanity, what obscenity! And yet these
are the germs Of our future as nation
| Then, again, look at the frightfulv grow
ing disregard Of law, both constitutional
and statute. But, perhaps the most dan
gerou. sign of the times which we are cal
led on to observe, is the assumption Of th'
military over the civil power. The knell 9
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