Year: 1875

should have established here some ut least
OF the oid-world institutions which they re-
Jected Who can say that the old Federal
party, with its mOnarchical tendencies and
lts State and church notions, was not nearer
right after alla


1t is then observed insidiously:


Republics have heretofore been saved by
the introduction of semi rchical insti'
tuhons, and nations groaning under the
sway OF despctsm have had their condition
improved by acquiring additional freedom.
And in pursuance of the same idea:
We do not say it will ever be necessary
for us to have king, and an order of no.
bility, and a State church, and standing
army, but we do say that the present CON
dition of our politics better supports the
assertion that our form of government Is
failure than that it is success; that our
national Congress has shown itself deplor-
ably incapable and untrustworthy; thai the
proceedings of most of our State Legsla
tures are scandalous; that we must declare
OF our municipal governments that the mob
element of the popuace controls them; that
the judiciary is often corrupt and owns for
its master the political party of the day;
aud, finally, that in all these particulars we
are worse Oft than the nations of Europe
where kings mobiles, priests and standing
armies 6tlll Hourlsn.


Before any who really love republican
form of government should abandon the
inheritance which the fathers of the re-
public have bequeathed them, it would
seem proper that they inquire whether
every effort has been made to preserve
those principles pure as when they were
first delivered to those who now admin
lister them? 1t is always reproach to an
heir that he runs through the paternal
succession without the virtue or the ability
to keep it together. Such would be the
just sentence upon any degenerate de-
scendant of the Revolutionary fathers, or
OF the more pardonable scion of some
alien who, having fled his own country
through discomfort of bad government,
has transmitted the same incapacity to
fight for reform to his posterity.


For suppose we grant the corruption of
political parties. Is this an irremediable
evil? Is there no offset in the millions of
free and virtuous people? Is there to be
no discount for the number of churches
and the worship of vital religion? Are
free schools and absolute exemption from
the legal oppression of debt nothing?
Does no one value the habeas corpus be-
cause it has been occasionally suspended,
or the right to bear arms, and freedom
from domiciliary search, which, with
other hard won and peculiar rights, have
been embodied in the laws of the federal
and State governments? We should think
that country which has assembled from
colonial dependency to the front rank of
nations must have something of stamina
and impulse in its political and social
system. 1t would really seem probable
that when three-fourths of the whole
population of the Union have quilted Eu-
rope since the revolution of l776, and
now in person or by their descend
ants constitute the majority of the
American people, that there must
be something infinitely good in our insti-
tutions or insufferably evil in those of
Europe; that the stream of emigration
continues by the hundred thousand an
nually; that our fields are TILED and work.
shops active with the industry of people
who have come to the Union from the
happy land of the kings and nobility,
would signify something if it entered into
fha fnri6ip111 cahann nf r,nirop,,n
popular mind against their own govern
ment.


We would have expected from COM
mercial journal some knowledge of the
condition of those blessed countries in
which kings and priests bear such happy
sway. Does the Commercial read the con-
dition of the homeless serfs who cultivate
the farms Of England? Does it know
that the government has never intrusted
these men with the right of suffrage, and
that it has SO darkened the light Of kuowl-
edge that they are more ignorant than the
enfranchised negroes of the United States!
Is it aware of the poverty of the cities,
of the toll of the English operatives
Has it read that the English mill women
turn their infants over to baby farmers,
who so dosed them with opiates that
their infanticide presents proportions
worse, because more cruel, than that of
China? The Commercial does not, per-
haps, remember that England holds Ire
land and her own discontented paupers
with standing army and a navy,
nor that the whole cost of sup
porting the crown, the aristocracy
and the priesthood is levied upon the
labor Of these people. The Commercial
would prefer French prince, Perhaps
Bourbon or a Bonaparte. That nation,
having had the supreme happiness of an
Emperor, was reduced to bondage, shorn
of rich provinces, and held to heavy ran
som. The miserable people rose in COM
munism and were slain by thousands.
The government which succeeded the en-
pire is at this time distracted by the most
violent conflicts, and no one can predict
peace of country in which so many
opposite elements seem arming for war.
Spain, perhaps, suits the Commercial bet
ter. 1t would like to carry out the de-
signs improperly charged upon some
Kentuckians of the olden time, and be-
emma q colopv of Spa;y a1o,,cs;5o or A.