The morning call., 1893-09-20
-sF1E PRESIDENTS REBUKE.

President Cleveland has a knack of
uttering tTuisms with an emphasis which
tempts his hearers to fancy that they are
revelations. At the centennial anniver-
sary of the laying of the cornerstone of
the national Capitol he observed:
IL the representatives who here assemble TO
make laws for their feHOw-cOuntrymr n forget
the duty of broad, dsinterestec patriotism. and
legslate in prejudice and passion, or in behalf
OF sectional, selfish interests the time when the
cornerstone Of our Capitol was laid ana the
circumstances surrounding it VIII not be worth
commemoratine.
This statement is rather in the be-good-
and Ou-wili-be-happy style. But the i'm
preston which it is intended to convey is
that public men in our day do "forget the
duty Of broad, disinterested patriotism"
whereas their predecessors at the time
when the Capitol was founded did not ::
that the fathers" were not governed by
sectional, selfish interests" as their de-
scendants appear TO be. This is an erro-
neous and deceptive view. The fact is
that the public men of the last century
were in some instances more blind to the
duty of broad. disnterested patriotism.
and more often governed by sectional,
selfish interests than the public men of TO-
day, as can be ascertained by pe;usal Of
the history Of the initial years of the
republic.
Won Hoist tells US that after the close of
the war Of Independence. and while the
Union was in process of formation, the
States opposed its organization from im-
pure personal motives. Confidence in the
virtue of the people was a mask behind
which the most egotistic ends were con-
cealed. Many were willing to sell the
honor Of their own State without the least
regard for the well-being or the honor of
the whole. Each State had the exclusive
right To regulate its own commerce, and
each State, most ungenerously and most
selfishly. avaled itself to the utmost limit
of this right. In the regulation of COM
merce, regard was had only to seIf-nterest
and policy was frequently followed the
aim of which was to obtain an advantage
directly opposed to the welfare of the
neghboring Sta tes." Tine debates in the
Federal convention show that the dele
gates from each State-with few excep-
tions-considered each provision of the
constitution from the standpoint of the in
terests of their own State only, without
regard to the In nterests Of tie whole. They
acted, as Mr.. Cleveland says. from selfish
sectional interests" Even after the con-
stitution was adopted it is doubtful
whether it could have been ratified but for
the apprehension that States which did
not accept ii would become not independ-
ent sovereign common wealtns, but terri
tories of the Union. IL was this argument
which swayed Rhode Island at the last
The simple truth is tnat all or nearly all
public men, in their early stage of devel-
opment. are governed by fealty to the
locality from which they hail rather than
by LOYALTY TO the nation of which they are
members. 1t is only when they ripen that
they emerge from provipcialism and study
public questions from the standp point OF
principle and broad general interest.
That was the case hundred years ago :
it is the case to-day; and the provincial
ism has rather decreased than increased.
as intelligence has become more generally
diffuSed.
1t is right and proper that the President
should chide our faults, and narrow
minded seclonalism is a fault. But he
would have displayed more eandor if be
had coupled his rebuke with an acknowl-
edgment Of the progress which civism
has made since the days when Washing
ton, franklin and Hamilton were almost
the only members of the convention who
rose TO the height of the crisis in 1857. Itis
not unreasonable TO believe that if that