Litchfield enquirer., 1868-10-29
MOTLEY'S SPEECH.

party spirit could develope itself with fa
 cility and regularity. Never before did . representative republic on any considera
 ble scale exist. Popular representation
 the election of men to speak each for hundred thousand or more of their fellow citizens at some common central point-fa
 miiiar as we are with it, so much so that i
 seems like one of the elemental laws-was entirely unknown to the Republics, grea
 and small, of Antiquity or of the Middle Ages. That which makes the Democratic Republic possible and perfectly convenient on the vast scale of this country was neye, imagined before. The Democratic force in older Republics evaporated uselessly ol exploded balefully, because no engine had been invented by which Man becomes mas
 ter Of the superhuman strength of men of the aggregate thought and will of great multltudes. And free government may cease to be free, even though all the forms and appliances for energetic action are present, if the party spirit, the potent ex- pansive vapor which moves all things, is absent or insufficient X x
 THE CRY AGAINST CAPITALIZATION.
 Look round the world to-day in any di- rectlon, and say whether you think it de- slrable for yourselves and your children to belong to petty nation and feeble gov
 ernment. And we may search bistorv in vain to find any justification for the fear sincerely enterained no doubt, by many from whom difer-th at this Union will perish or cease to protect it's citizens, be- cause of too much consolidation. The re- publlcs of antiquity offer but little analo
 gy to our system, for they were all devel
 opements, small, greater or gigantic, of the munlclpality-of the City-conquerin it might be, other cities, provinces, king doms, nations, but remaining city still.
 fSome fell because it was an overgrown city. With oO, O,oOO,OOO subjects, and because hu- man slavery had eaten ont its very heart; because 1000, 900 its heterogeneous pop- ulatlon were slaves, bought and sold like other merchandise; because there was no parliamentary representation of the vast nuitltuues of foreigners whom her legions had subdued, and which she k spt ill abiect servitude, until the slaves rr,.es;t: and fore her t6 ffttlyv8 8nG most Dire with her. Does any man suppose, if her slaves had been emancipated, if system of popular and equal representation of all the citizens of all races and colors throughout that worldwide domain had existed-an idea which at least may be conceived of by way of illustrations if her army had num- bered 5O,OOO men instead of being count ed by millions, that her liberties would have perlshed, and she herself have ceLs- ed to exist by reason of too much consoli- datlon? The danger would have been pre- clsely the reverse. The empire, from it's
 very extent, must have fallen to pieces of its own weight aud in truth it is only in modern science-not only in political phi losophy but in the application of physical forces-that our security lies against disin- tegration. Without steam, electricity, la r-saving machinery, and, above all, all equal system of popular representation, such widely extended republic would be impossible, and 1t is our duty to guard against the tendencies to decentralization and over-localization by perfecting as far as possible our representative system. Nor did the vast empire of Charlemagne, when his scepter stretched over almost all Eu- rope, fall from consolidation, but from ex- actly the opposite cause: the centrifugal principle. That scepter broke in the hands Of hls lmbeclle successors, because in the state of the world then existing, 1t was inn possible to make 1t felt at distance, and because society, perhaps-lacking the mod representation, beside all the other physi- cal discoveries and improvements-h had need of disintegration before civilization could organize itself locally and in detach- ed groupings. 1 can understand the cry against centralization in such country as France, where the national territory is less than the area of the single State of Texas, and where the population, energetic, in ventive, laborious, thrifty, is nearly as nu
 merous as that of our whole Union; where there Is no system of representation, as We understand it-where public meetings fol political discussion, such as we are holding now, are a crime; where military govern. ment, supported by 1.2O0, 900 of as coura. geous, perfectly disciplined and experien- ced soldiery as ever existed iii the world
 holds all the legislative, executive, judicial, administrative functions of the nation in the hollow of it's hand, and where the press and public speech are under iron control. But the cry should point to the danger , In the United States-with universal sui frage; with boundless liberty of the pres: and of public meetings; with a Congress elected every two years, and President every four; with a standing army, before the Rebellion, only equal in number to the army of Hesse Clssei-13, ,000 of them, of l icers, privates, musicians, pioneers ant all-and not four times that number now
 WlGu a uOZeH StumD SPet1nelS III every SCuCo
 district; with newspaper and a militia ? general in every village; with domain o : 3,OoO,O0O square miles-as large as all Flu ) rope-capable of supporting the whole ac tual population of this globe, if we should } be packed as closely as the Beigians at thi moment, and now sparsely inhabited b, } less than 4O, ,000, ,000, all wide awake to thei
 rights, whether municipal, State or ma tiOnaI and ready to stand up for them f., the crack of doom; cannot feel that ou : liberties are in much danger from the Ma
 tional Republican party, and that we az
 tamely sinking into consolidated militia , ry despotism. It seems to melt has al :. ways seemed to me-that our perils lie il
 exactly the opposite direction. Tner
 must be fear of disintegration where tn
 surface is so broad, the population relative
 ly so scanty, and the enginery of repres c sion and concentration except in times c impending catastrophe like those iron !. which we are emerging, so slender. Ina keen observer and profound thinker, D ' Tocqueville, whose work upon the Unite