Year: 1860

that admirlns sympsthv which never fails
to Wait on courage and magnanimi,y, the
career Of the new Timoleon in Sicily
while We hare been reckoning, with an
interest scarcely less than IN some affair Of
personal concern, the chances and changes
that bear with furtheranee or hindrance upon
the fortune Of united ftaly, We are approach
ing With quie,ness and composure which
more than anything else mark the essential
difference between our own form of
democracy and any other yet unknown in
history, . crisis in our domestic policy On ore
momentous than any that has arisen sipce
We became nation. Indeed, considering
the vital consequences for good or evil that
win follow from the popular decision in No.
vember, We nigh, be tempted to regard the
remarkable moderation which has thus far
characterized the Presidential canvass 40 a
guilty indifference to the duty implied in the
privilege " suffrage, or astolid unconscious
ness Of the result which may depend upon
its exercise 10 this particular election, did
ws not believe that it arose chiefly from
tae general persuasion that the success
Of the Republican party Vas foregone
conclusion.


10 society ike ours, where every man
| may sraBsmuts bic private thought into his
tory and destiny BY dropping it into the
baiiot-box, peculiar responsibility rests
upon the individual. Nothing can absolve
US from doing our best to look at oil public
! questions as citizens, and therefore 10 some
sort as administrators and rulers. For
though during its term Of Office the govern
meut be practically as independent Of the
popular will as that of Russia, yet every
fourth year the people are called upon to
/ pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs.
Theoretically, at least, to give democracy
any standing ground for an argument with
dcspo,ism or o!igarchy, a majority of the
men composing it should be statesmen and
thinkers. 1t is a proverb, that to turn a
radical into conservative there needs only
to put him into Office, because then the
license OF speculation or sentiment is limited
by n sense of esponsibiIitv,--then for the
| first time no becomes capable Of the CON.
| parative view which sees principles and
measures, not in the narrow abstract, but
in the full breadth Of their relation to each
other and to political Consequences. The
theory OF democracy presurposes something
of these results OF official position in the
Individual voter, since in exercising his right
he bee Imes for the moment an integral par,
Of the governing power.


How very far practice is from any likliness
/ to theory weeks experience of our politics
sulEces to convince US. The very govern.
men itself seems an organized scramble, and
| Congress boys debating club, with the
disadvantage Of being reported. As our
party creed. are commonloy represented
less by ideas than by persons, (who are
assumed, without too close scrutiny, to be
the exponent of certain ideas,) our polite.
become personal and narrow to a degree
never paralleled, unless in ancient Athens
or medieval Florence. Our Congress de-
bates and our newspapers discusr, some
times for day after day, not questions of
national interest, not what is wise and right,
but what the Honorable Lafayette Skreemer
said on the stump, or bad whiskey SAID for
him, half dozen years ago. If that per-
sonnge, outraged in all the finer sensibilities
Of our common nature, by failing to get
the contract for supplying the Distric,
Court-House at Skrecmcropolisville City
with revolvers, was led to disparage the
union of these States, it is seized on as proof
conclusive that the party to which he belongs
are so many Catdlines,-for Congress is
unanimous only in misspeling the name Of
that oft invoked conspirator. The next
Presidential Election looms always in ad.
vance, so that we seem never to have mn
actual Chief Magistrate, but prospective
one, looking to the chances Of reelection,
and mingling in all the dirty in.rigues of
provincial politics with an unhappy talent
for making them dirtier. The cheating
mirage of the White House lures our public
men away from present duties and obliga-
tons: and il matters 20 on as they have
! gone, We shall need Committee Of Congress
to count the spoons in the public plate closet
whenever President goes out Of Office
with n policeman I'd wa.ch every member OF
the Committee. We are kept normally in
that most Improbable Of predicalnents, a
state Of transition, and politicians measure
| their words and deeds by n standard of i'm
! mediate and temporary expedency,-an
expediency not as concerning the nation, but
which, il more than merely personal, is no
wider than the interests of party.


| Is all this result Of the failure of demo-
cratic institutions? Rather Of the fact that
those institutions have never vet had fair
trial, and that for the last thirty wears an
abnormal element has been acting adversely
with continually increasing strength. What
ever be the effect Of slavery upon the States
where it exists, there can be no doubt that





most disastrous. 1t has compelled cur
politicians into that first fatal compromise
with their moral instincts and hereditary
principles which makes al. consequent ones
easy it has accustomed US to makeshifts
instead OF craftsmanship, to subterfugc in-
stead Of policy, to party platforms for
opinions, and to defiance of the public
sen,imen. OF the civilized world for patriot
tan Al.
that 1t was necessary evil; then that it was
good both to master and slave; then that
| it was the corner stems Of free institutions;
| then that it was system divinely instituted
under the Old Law and sanctioned under
the New. With representation, three.
fifths Of it based on the assumption that
negroes are men, tho South turns upon US
and insists on our acknowledging that they
are things. After compelling her Northern
allies to pronounce the "free and equal'
clause Of the preamble to the Declaration of
independence tbecause it stood in the way
of enslasing men) manifest absurdity, she
has declared, through the Supreme Court
| Of the United States that negroes are not
men in the ordinary meaning Of the word.
! To cat dir. is bad enough, but to find that
We have eaten more than was necessary may
chance to give US an indigestion. The slave
holding interests has gone on step by step,
forcing concession after concession, till it
needs bu, little to secure i, forever in the
political supremacy Of the country. Yield
to its latest demsnd,-let it mould the evil
destiny of the Territories,-and the thing is
done past recall. The next Presidential
Election is to say Yes or No.


/ but We should not regard the mere 1ue.-
ton OF political preponderancy as Of vital
consequence did it not involve continually
Increasing moral degradation on the part Of
the Sonslavcholding States,-for Free
States they could not be called much longer.
Sordid and ma.erialis,ic views Of the true
value and objects Of society and government
are professed more and more openly by the
leaders Of popular outcrs, if 1t eanno, be
called public opinion. Tha. side Of human
I n wh,ob ;s haa ~ II - III