The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-10-04
POLITICS.

There q confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pam,
Long labor unto aged breath;
MORE task TO hearts worn out " Oh many wars,
And eyes grown with gazing o. the pilot stars"
In times of comparative smoothness and of
apparent security, there isa class Of very re-
putable citizens who are disposed to shrug
their shoulders and raise their brows in su-
percilious complacency at the mention of
politics. as though it were something quite
caviare to persons of their position, pursuits,
tastes and habits They are usually such as
are well to do in life, or such as are diligently
working to make themselves 80. They shun
political excitements and distractions in the
persuasion that they are stunning extremely
vicious and dangerous modes of gambling and
dissipation. They are dreadfully respectable,
and dreadfully well meaning people; for they
labor under the terrible delusion that re-
speciality is illustrated by scrupulous
abstention and serene Indifference with
regard to politics, and that it is
positive virtue to withdraw from political
hustle and clamor into terrapin shells Of ex-
clusiveness, and to surrender public affairs to
men whom they do not concede to be INTEL
lectually superior to themselves and whom
they believe to be selfish, corrupt and reck-
less. The longer they behaved in this way,
the more repulsive became the political arena
to men of their notions and inclinations-
They saw it crowded more and more with
trading and jobbing politicians, and made
more and more hideous with the cries of
mountebanks and the shrieks of fanatics.
They then either would not, or could not, gain
entrance there to bring affairs under better
counsel and control. And thus their ostra-
cism, voluntary at first, was perpetuated.
What wonder that the country at length be-
came prey to all manner of corrupt schemes
and all manner of revolutionary passionsl
If the class of men referred to as cultivating
a respectable aversion to politics, are largely
responsible for this result, it is also true that
they are suffering an awful penalty for their
delinquency. The shocks of discord and
change have touched no other interests so
sadly as theirs. They perceive at last that,
even in the smoothest time, politics was no
trivial matter. With the sad wisdom of dis
astrous experience they know that politics
logically extended then, as it practically comes
home now, to every thing needful, desirable,
precious and dear in life-to peaceful indus
try, to commercial enterprise, to personal free
dom, to household affections, ties and duties
to child and wife, to land and life, to ALL in fact
that lies at the basis of material we'll being,
domestic happiness, social order, and of civil
cation itself.
The lesson to be deduced is plain. Scorn
Of politics, under any circumstances, is of the
nature of that pride which, according to the
scriptural proverb, cometh before destruction
The respectable, the honest, the substantial,
the thrifty must either master politics for their
own and the common good, or politics will
assuredly master them in some form pregnant
with disaster to them ana ruin ~ the county.
They can no more afford to despise politics
than a merchant or a banker can afford to
despise arithmetic and bookkeeping Indif-
ference to political fallacy may prove as fatal
to country, as indifference to an error in
calculating latitude and longitude may prove
to a ship. If the country is to be finally
wrecked, the event may unquestionably be
traced to the existence of this species of indif-
ference, long years back, when such political
sentinels as John c. Calhoun uttered their
solemn warnings.
1t was once beautifully said of this most
luminous and prophetic of American states
men that he claims our confidence by his
very fears, and like the needle, trembles into
place." But, alas, the confidence was not
enough to preventive bitter fulfllment of his
fears. The class of well-meaning men who
turned disdainfully from politics and fancied
that no great harm would ensue from the
abandonment of public affairs to knaves and
fanatics, was fatally numerous. Let US hope
that there is no such class now in the country.
In the South we know there is not. But if
the country is to be saved, this must be the
case hereafter in both sections.