The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1868-02-22
Our Prospects gJniler Radical Rule.

From the ST. Louis Republican.
Always in times of decline great political
crimes go hand in hand with small intrigues
But in honor of olden times it must be admitted
that, whilst men were in most cases the promo
ters of the ruin OF their countries, it gsner-
ally the part of vicious women to assist the per-
nicious work by their intrigues The epoch OF
the Richeleus, the Mazarins and the Dubois,
and in our own time the schemes attributed to
the Empress Eugenia and to the Queen of Han
over afford sufficient evidence for this assertion.
In our own country men alone do it all. They
commit the great crimes and they concoct the
mean scandals they destroy the happiness OF
their country, and they indulge in the insidious
plots against the respect due the supreme mags-
trate OF the nation; they play the part Of miser-
able statesmen and scandalous mattresses at once,
and with perfect sang .ti'Otd do our great heroes
of yesterday assume to-day the role of little in
triguers
OF such men the nation should be equally
afraid and ashamed. For they not only undo
what the greatest minds of our people have done,
but they do at the same time what the meanest
creatures i'll other countries were not ashamed to
do. BY tearing down most of our democratic insti-
tutions, and by changing the rest so as to make
them the mere instruments of their despotism,
they have SO disfgured our Government that it
is the mere caricature of what it used to be
and, by their constant intrigues against the
President, they have so perfectly undermined his
authority that the only choice left to any subse-
quent President under the Radical rule is be-
tween the role Of a dictator or a servile lnstru.
ment of a Congressional cdmariNa. Were the
Radicals to elect the next President, he cannot,
if he be man, avoid breaking through all the
chains by which they have tied his hands.
Otherwise, though he wore sword at his side,
his whole energy would consist in the distribu-
ton of the spoils and honors among the rapacions
crowd making him their chief. If this country
is no more to be ruled by law, but by the des-
potism and intrigues of faction, just as it hap
pened in Franco during part of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, it depends only on the
peculiar character of the man, whether he becomes
powerful despot like Louis XIV, or play
thing Of the intriguer,, like Louis XIV That
We still live in quasi republic does not make
any difference The Polish kingdom was cleo
tive, yet venality, corruption and lcen-
tiousness had the sway there just as much
as at the court Of the hereditary Kings of France
In the United States there will be still greater
difference in the origin of power, but dsspotism
and intrigue are certain to give to the Govern
ment tho same character here as in Europe
They have universal suffrage in France, but still
the world never saw moro systematic tyranny.
The spirit and not the name by which a nation
is ruled makes it great or despicable The spirit
by which its Constitution is enforced and not
the name gives its government the character of
democratic rule or of despotism that only looks
like democracy. If the next President of tho
United States should be chosen by the party who
have not only broken down the Constitution at
every step they have made, but also by their in
famous intriguss dshonored the Office of the
President, he may be god descended from the
hoavons, and yet be unable to avoid cooperating
in the ultimate ruin of his country. If he should
be daring man, the agony will be of shert du-
ration; if good man, without energy, he will
slowly decay. But if not a god, nor even demi.
god, but merely the idol of the moment, man of
prestige by his past, but of no penetrate On nor
elevated craftsmanship, then the country will
assist in tragic comedy-to a mixture Of
Pretorian insolence and modern scheming-such
as was never known before.