Year: 1859

Our washinxton Corrsspondence-The


Tendencies OF Modern Democracy.


WASHINGTON, D. c., April 20.
10 Ms Editors Of tss Assnssosio":


To analyze with any degree Of freedom the
tendencies of so-called Democracy; its infiu-
euces upon our public institutions, upon the
manners and morals of the age, and upon the
hopes and fears of the country; would lead to
elaborate essays far beyond my time and abi-
ity, therefore will only glance at few OF us
most glaring and hideous features.


The most direfl among these, is the fright
full rapidity with which the party is overturn-
ing and subverting whatever in sound morals
or good government has hitherto existed. 1t
has transposed the rule of our ancient states
men, to sacrifice party when it stood in oppo-
sition to the welfare of the State; but for the
strength of party, these men not only override
the Constitution, but invade every private
domici, to demoralize its inhabitants. Every
temptation to honesty they would destroy by
elevating venality above probity, and lavishing
encomums upon baseness, while virtue is vii
itied with the foulest expressions.


Already this ci-deuant Democracy has ban
ished into obscurity, and deprived the country
Of the public service, of noble class Of disin-
terested, intelligent and honorable statesmen
of both parties, who have the confidence of
the people, and must soon be the pillars of the
republic. Even the moderate and best men
of their own party are struck down, as Tar
quin leveled the tallest poppies in his garden,
by a crowd of tyrannical demagosues, who on
ly appear upon the surface when the political
atmosphere is thick with corruption.


The party canons of the day-the canon of
mobocracy, says to age, to experience, to wis
dom, moderation, virtue and integrity, "get
behind me Satan" This terrible creed, dis
TILED in the cauldron Of faction, and promul-
gated by the schools of iniquity, teaches youth
to pile contempt upon age, to make a mock
cry of the councils of wisdom, to burlesque
virtue to ridicule private affections as foolish,
and to designate gratitude as crime.


The dominant party has created its own
schools of brawling agitators; demagogues
who are selected for their accomplishments in
venality, mendacity, duplicity and irreligion.
These fearful drones toll not, neither do they
spin, but feed upon the public hive to which
they bring nothing but rancor, discord and
alarm These champions of the slaughter
house of faction, are eloquent in making the
people believe that they minister at the Altar
Of Liberty, while they are scattering the in
cense of decentralization and social anarchy,
from which, as from the blood of Minotaur,
spring up serpents whenever it touches the
land.


These agents, the pensioned spies and do
Gle tools of base government, are usually
ex.members of Congress and prominent Office
holders, who are still in pursuit of favor and
power 1t is their business to keep the ma
ton entangled in net Of espionage, which,
like the air, invisible, envelops US on all sides,
to be felt only from its effects. They entwine
the coils of intrigue, like the serpent of Las
coon, about the "dear people" whose deadly
embrace yields to no remonstrance from honor
or patriotism, but tightens its Internal hug
while resistance is in vain, till civil order be-
comes as degenerate as its vile pursuers.


In the obscurity with which these agents
perform the Office of traitors to the public Sc
cmity, they act upon the body polite as an
invisible poison, which executes its deadly
mission, but gives no warning of its existence
until the work of devastation is done. The
more to be feared that it cannot be openly
combatted-the more powerful in that its
champions act as the professed friends of
the dear people"


The principal mission of this generation Of
political vipers is to frame excuses for fraud,
to shape apologies for vice, and familiarize the
nation to images of RIGHTEOUSNESS, misrule and
usurpation-to embolden their own partizans
to acts of aggression upon the Constitutional
rights of the people, and to cry down the
clamors of scandal, and the deep denuncia-
tions of an offended and abused nation.


am not denouncing the Democracy of our
forefathers-the doctrines of Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, &C., but the dying and
blackened embers of burnt out Democracy
the unsighty remains of once beautiful
temple, now desecrated and polluted and
from the ruins of which, as from the ruins Of
Babylon, come out only unclean birds of prey
and beasts of carnage. My object is simply
to draw picture of the times, and point out
the chaos which surrounds us.


And here it may be proper to ask that we
transport ourselves back to the earlier days
of the republic, and contrast the glorious and
spotless characters of the past with the vena
creatures now in power. This, however
would be hooted at, for those divine sages o.
purity and wisdom, who planted the corner
stone of the Temple of Liberty beneath the
shadows of Religion, are discarded now, and
driven from sight, as the semi barbarous re.
mains of distant and less civilized age.


1t is unnecessary to claim the mantle Of
Elijah, or to pretend to the gift of prophecy, to
foretel the direction in which the nation is
drifting. There is no longer any stimulus left
to create exalted and truly potriotic charac-
ters. The political face of the country is an
intaglio, upon the surface of which, in spite Of
our free Constitution, the forms and figures Of
Democratic disruption are written. In this
assertion am sustained by the daily writings
ofmen of great eminence and moral WORTH
No monarchy ever created can be compared
in evil to Democracy run mad, and seeking
plunder through anarchy and blood


1t would be DrOper here To make an exhibit