Year: 1877

Agitation and a New War.


Especial Correspondence of the Democrat


CLIFTON, Ont, July Z, 1877.


Blaine illustrates the ancient Sunday school
apothegm that nothing is created in vain
Customarily 1t must be admitted that inn
mense difficulty attends every attempt at dis
cerning


THE USEFULNESS OF BLAINE.


His character and career, taken together,
present a dismal waste OF selfishness and self
seeking, regardless alike of the public inter-
ests and personal deeency-a moral Sahara
whose occasional oases of intellectual bril-
lianey even bear no fruit but Dead Sea apples
and noxions herlb~of doctrine and policy,
And yet Blaine has his uses. He exists to
demonstrate the purposes and personify the
resentful elements of New England.


The average citizen, busted with material
pursuits and snatching here and there q
leisure moment for reading and the absorp-
tion of earnest intelligence, may not be inn
pressed by distractions. If you say to him
that New England is the Machiavellian


POLITICAL PLAGUE SPOT
upon the face Of the land, he will not be
moved thereat. If you remark that New
England is an artificial community, builded
on sterile rock and depending for susie
nance upon the possibilities OF robbing people
who work for an honest living, he will still
detect nothing but generality. But when
you say, "There is Blaine; you see what he
is doing and what his policy is ! Behold in
Blaine the incarnated diabolism of New
England" When you say these things,
the average citizen of the West and South, the


WEALTH PRODUCING SECTIONS,
discovers that New England is the
wealth absorbing section and that the pro-
cesses of absorption are necessarily preda-
tory.


To illustrate Suppose the Christian reli-
as doctrine Of intangible ideal
isms; suppose there had never been any per-
or personifieation Of Good in the
Lord or of Evil in the Devil, there would not
have been one convert where there are now
millions. Well, so with politics, which is the
of human thought upon tenn
poral affairs, as religion is upon spiritual
things. AS in religion, there must be a


PERsoNATED CENTRAL OBJECT
Of desire and faith, for good, and another CEN
tral object OF horror and aversion, for evil, 50
in politics.


Now, the Devil In religion is much abused
and yet it would not do to elimi-
nate him from the plan of salvation, for that
many good Christians have been turned from
the ways of flesh through fear of the Devil
who never could have been wrought upon
through love of the Lord.


Thus Blaine in politics Is also much decried,
but his elimination would be u misfortune,
for the reasons / have already stated. The
analogy between


BLAINE AND THE DEVIL
might indeed be traced to much more minute
specifications, il chose to pass from the OBJ
iective to the subjective phase of their respect
i've characters and careers; but at present 1
only wish to point out the similarity of their
spheres of usefulness.


Of course you have read Blaine's Wood
stock speech on the Fourth; in fact, you cam
not have read much else than that and the
upon it during the past three or
four days. In order fully to understand
Blaine's attitude and adequately to compre-
hend its significance to the public at large,
and particularly to the South, it is necessary
to know intimately


WHAT HIS PROJECTS ARE
md accurately what forces he can muster for
their realization. lean give you tolerably ac-,
3urate idea of the nature of his projects; but
rs to the extent of the forces which he will be
able to muster, should say that it is a ques-
Jon of contingencies entirely. If you will
AXE the trouble to trace the polical and social
history Of this country, you will discover
hat from the foundation of our government
% the present time, there has existed in New
England, centreing in Massachusetts and
localized in Boston, what may may be called a


MOTHER COUNTRY SPIRIT
5oward the rest of the country. That is to
say, the New Englanders OF the Revolution
regarded themselves as the architects of the
American Republic, and therefore hereditary
arbiters of its destinies, themselves and their
heirs and assigns forever. It is only by
much contact with the New England people
Ut home that this great fact can be fully
-ealized by the outside barbarian of the West
md South.
The ruling. classes in New England are
Utmost as sharply defined and as exclusively
ledged about by tradition and privilege as
ire those of Old England. There may be no
patents of nobility and no


TITULAR DISTINCTIONS.
But in good stead of these there is an esprit
III corps among the descendants of the Puri-
ans and the posterity of the soldiers of Lex
ngton, Concord and Bunker Hill, which !
mounts to a heredtament Of the power Of
aste If not to an inheritance of sounding |
tiles and entaile1 estates 1t used to be the
ashton up here to rail at the


''sLAyE-HoLDING ARIsToCRACY,'
o represent the Southern system as an |
'ligarchy, impenetrable to true Democratic |
deas and impervious to the doctrines of Re
publican progress. But if there was caste in
he South under the slave regime, it was an
free-hearted, frank-tongued
development of superior manhood, which
nothing but stupidity, cowardice
+ vileness, and which never failed to well
ONE intelligence, integrity and manhood
Ike itself, come from whatsoever quarter it