Morning journal and courier., 1889-04-29

6 question of time before the power of the I government, with the public sentiment of the country to enforce it, shall reach to him and secure on every acre of soil covered by our flag the rights and privileges of American citizenship. Those questions which have been settled by war are no longer to be deemed open questions in any State in the Union. There shall be one law for the whole people.
 The constitution which the president of Yale college in 17s9, after due reelection, concluded twas not the most perfect consti- tution, yet on the whole was 8 very good one," has proved it's parmanence at the foun- dation of our institutions. It hes to some extent been subject to amendment and re- vision, but in it's essential features it remains the enduring compact and covenant of free people. Noah Webster in 8 pamphlet advo- eating it's adoption remarked that any man taking 8 comprehensive view of it as 8 whole would "be pleased with the admire the struoture;" and in answer to those who opposed it's adoption on account of some particulars in it deemed defective he said: "A painter, after executing a mas- terly piece, requested every spectator to draw pencil mark over the part that did not please him; but, to his surprise, he soon found the whole piece defaced." "If every objection" he concludes, s'must be removed before we have a national govern ment, the Lord have mercy on us."
 The Lord did have mercy on the people of these States; and the objections of the crit ics were not suffered to stay the hands of the architects of our national structure, which upon it's secure foundation endures to this day.
 A correspondent in New York writing to the New Haven paper May g, 17s9, said: "A national spirit distinguishes and adorns this present age." May the beginning of this new hundred years of constitutional lib- erty be marked likewise throughout all the land by national spirit.
 One might pause in satisfied contempla- tion of the achievements of the past, and in thanksgiving for the full and final settle ment of the constitutional questions which have threatened the perpetuity of the union. But upon the foundations Of great questions which have been settled rise the new duties of the coming age. The whole achievement of the mighty past is the opportunity of the present. There are further questions al- ready pressing for settlement in this country. And to veteran troops the most welcome con- gratulatory notes are new marching orders. Our country does not belong only to the old mans memory, but also to the young mans hope. The safety of the republic must be pledged in the fulflment of present duties.
 Yet in glancing, as I shall now proceed to to, at questions which are still open and per- ills which seem imminent in our country, l must not forget lesson which has come to me with fresh truth as I have been reading somewhat the political literature which the people read hundred years ago; it is the lesson that the political pessiEists and morSl alarmists have little reason for existence on American soil. The political and even the religious literature of the latter part of the last century was full of lamentations of evil and forebodings of ill. Voices of alarm for < Ial of Had in all the State conventions. We may still read the fears of our fathers in the faded col- umns of their weekly newspapers. So passes the glory of America" was the wailing of 8
 tColumbian Patriot" es he surveyed the prospect of the ratification of the constitu- tion. Charges of fraudulent designs on the part of the advocates of the constitution were freely circulated. newspaper pub lished the story that 8 bag of gold was brought down from Massachusetts to silence the opposition in the Connecticut convention to the new constitution. That constitution was described by an eminent statesman as Ca heterogeneous phantom" ''a motley mix ture," "a many-headed monster" It was feared by wise and able men that it would introduce aristocracy, mon- archy, despotism, and bloody war. The proved folly of the forebodings even of most intelligent men in those days may aamon- ish us not to suffer our sense of any gov
 
 hope in us, we throw ourselves into the present tasks and duties of citizenship. 1t is instructive also to observe that the evils which our fathers most feared have not proved to be the perils to which their child ren have been most exposed. Thus Elbridge Gerry, who lived to become Vice-Presi- dent of the United States, and whose daugh- ters still lives among us to honor his memory in this centennial year objected to the ratification of the new constitution, that "there is no provision for rotation, nor any thing to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life, which" !" so he said, twill
 eeP1aeee1y e 1eey Rs aone to .ns or men or fees of government. "But we have expert. enced ths exact opposite of that evil which the permanent tenure of office, hes become our snare and national shame. The rapid rotation of a vflt official wheel, scarce checked by law, and urged on by the most powerful passion of party, deranges and im- perils our vast governmental machinery. I have not been able to find in my reading any indication that the fathers anticipated the evil of the spoils sys- tenn; although in an obscure column of the Litchfeld Monitor of March 9th, 17SS, noticed the hope expressed by . correspondent "that the new government of the United States, in the distribution of of flee will not be governed by the priority or vehemence of the applications" Yet in less than 6 century the spoils system which our fathers did not anticipate hss become the golden calf of American politics, and the worship of it is the political apostesy of our generation. As 1t wes here in New Haven that one of the earliest illustrations of this dangerous tendency was given in the removal by Jefferson, for political reasons, of the col- lector of this port, so 1t IS fitting that from this place there should arise 6 continue and intelligent protest against this whole system of political debauchery and corr 1ption. The evils of party spirit against which Washing ton with solemn testimony warned his coun- trymen, reach the full measure of it's in- iquity in the purcha' of electiora by money and in the division of the patronage of the government among the huns:y hosts of them that shout for the sI pills. And the applica- tion of tt's vicious system without any restraint of law, to the Indian department has brought our government at several points into direct collision with the educative and philanthropic work which 1t is the sacred duty of our American Christianity to render to the weaker and wronged races upon this continent. A system which is bad enough in it's effects upon the business of the community and by which the government it. self becomes 6 corrupter of the public virtue, grows worse and amounts to & wrong against human rights and is an outrage upon human ity when 1t is recognized in the office of the Indian commissioner and applied on the In- Qlhu ke5eIVhLlOub OAOWiy yos Su1oAy oSoAAas the pessions of party and the greed of men this reform is to be fought out to victory; the genius of the American people for good gov ernment must eventually bring this consum- nation also to pass, and put this question of the civil service above the reach of partisan ship among the settled que1tions of American history 80 that henceforth any political party which would take to itself the spoil of the government as 8 certain Jsraelite of old seized Babylonish garment and two hundred shek- els of silver, may find itself buried under @ heap of honest votes, as that ancient offender against the righteousness of his nation found himself buried under heap of stones.
 The open questions which remain for us and our children to settle are mostly social rather than directly governmental. And the evils which threaten our civilization-the peril of greed, the peril of class-warfare, the peril of the saloon, the peril of effeninacy among men in the midst of luxury, culture and abundance-thess psrils, and dangers such as these, are not to be overcome by spasms of rigorous legislation, or constitu- tional amendments, or even by better and more scientific laws. The constitution under which the republic has Hourished was not the creator, but the creation of the virtue of the people. It was 8 righteous nation