Year: 1860

To tho Editors Of the Pioneer and Democrat:


have read attentively and with much
satisfaction the communication in your
paper of to-day, on " The Philosophy of
Politics" The want of national policy is
doubtless the cause of all our weakness and
troubles but that cause is but the effect
of another and deeper cause. If our ex-
perience has not already proved it, few
years more of folly and recklessness Ger
tainly will make it plain, beyond dispute,
that our frequent elections are at the bottom
Of the general disregard of our greatest in.
terests as nation. Let our executive and
judicial officers hold for life, subject, of
course, to impeachment, and the terms Of
the legislative service be double, or rather
treble what they now are let the quackery
of cheap government as advocated in this
country 1.-THE most expensive in the world
considered with regard to its efficiency be
abandoned, and ell public officers handsome
ly paid, and rest assured our inherent
strength will Immediately begin to develop,
Patriotism-siDcere; and hearty, not the
windy talk about it which now disgusts
every intelligent man in the community
will spring into life among both govern
ors and the governed, and the thou
sand avenues and temptations to politi-
cal and official corruption will be cut
off. We boast much of our rapid
growth. But surely to the calm observer
it must be evident this is not what it might
have been, had the energies of the nation
been less occupied with party rivalry. The
fact is, Almighty God has done for US what
He has done for no other people. He has
brought to our very doors, poured into our
laps, an overhowing abundance of every
species of material wealth, almost without
effort on our part, and this we mistake for
the natural result of our own political sys-
tenn and fancied power. Never was a
nation more blessed with the means of
wealth, and never has a civilized people
accomplished so little in proportion to their
means. 10 the midst of our pride and vain
glory, the weakness of our government
seems about to exhibit itself to the world:
we have not strength enough. or enough of
national spirit, or loyalty, to hold together.
Our whole system is one of individual sell
fshness, of dsintegration, and this our
theory OF elections is carrying on to
its legitimate, its necessary consequent
ces. In the mania which prevails
for periodical political strife-which we call
liberty-it is not likely that the voice Of
the opponents of frequent elections will be
listened to; but as certain that unless the
system be speedily abandoned, disintegra>
tion will go on until anarchy and ruin will
overtake US. In the meantime, all that can
be done by those who foresee with the Ger.
tainty Of conviction, the fruits of our pres
ent infatuation, is to raise their voices in
warning and solemn protest, in the hope
that when all shall have been sufficiently
convinced by the logic of events, we may
labor together in the work of reforming the
fundamental errors of our political system,
and strengthening our government by the
adoption of those measures which the teach
ings of Divine Providence, as illustrated in
the history of the world, have shown to be
necessary to the true prosperity, nay, to the
continued existence of nation.


NOVEMBER 2Ost, 1860.