Where The Highest Offices In The State Are Neither Lucrative Enough
Nor Permanent Enough To Tempt Ambition - Where, In Addition,
Their
occupants are appointed by the President merely for a short term - and
where the highest dignity frequently precedes a
Lifelong obscurity, the
notoriety of party leadership offers a great inducement to the aspiring.
Party spirit pervades the middle and lower ranks; every man, almost every
woman, belongs to some party or other, and aspires to some political
influence.
Any person who takes a prominent part either in local or general politics
is attacked on the platform and by the press, with a fierceness, a
scurrility, and a vulgarity which spare not even the sanctity of private
life. The men of wealth, education, and talent, who have little either to
gain or lose, and who would not yield up any carefully adopted principle
to the insensate clamour of an unbridled populace, stand aloof from public
affairs, with very few exceptions. The men of letters, the wealthy
merchants, the successful in any profession, are not to be met with in the
political arena, and frequently abstain even from voting at the elections.
This indisposition to mix in politics probably arises both from the coarse
abuse which assails public men, and from the admitted inability, under
present circumstances, to stem the tide of corrupt practices, mob-law, and
intimidation, which are placing the United States under a tyranny as
severe as that of any privileged class - the despotism of a turbulent and
unenlightened majority. Numbers are represented exclusively, and partly
in consequence, property, character, and stake in the country are the last
things which would be deemed desirable in a candidate for popular favour.
Owing to the extraordinary influx of foreigners, an element has been
introduced which could scarcely have entered into the views of the framers
of the Constitution, and is at this time the great hindrance to its
beneficial working. The large numbers of Irish Romanists who have
emigrated to the States, and whose feelings are too often disaffected and
anti-American, evade the naturalisation laws, and, by surreptitiously
obtaining votes, exercise a most mischievous influence upon the elections.
Education has not yet so permeated the heterogeneous mass of the people as
to tell effectually upon their choice of representatives. The electors are
caught by claptrap, noisy declamation, and specious promises, coupled with
laudatory comments upon the sovereign people. As the times for the
elections approach, the candidates of the weaker party endeavour to obtain
favour and notoriety by leading a popular cry. The declamatory vehemence
with which certain members of the democratic party endeavoured to fasten a
quarrel upon England at the close of 1855 is a specimen of the political
capital which is too often relied upon in the States.
The enormous numbers of immigrants who annually acquire the rights of
citizenship, without any other qualification for the franchise than their
inability to use it aright, by their ignorance, turbulence, and often by
their viciousness, tend still further to degrade the popular assemblies.
It is useless to speculate upon the position in which America would be
without the introduction of this terrible foreign element; it may be
admitted that the republican form of government has not had a fair trial;
its present state gives rise to serious doubts in the minds of many
thinking men in the States, whether it can long continue in its present
form.
The want of the elements of permanency in the Government keeps many
persons from entering into public life; and it would appear that merit and
distinguished talent, when accompanied by such a competence as renders a
man independent of the emoluments of office, are by no means a passport to
success. The stranger visiting the United States is surprised with the
entire absence of gentlemanly feeling in political affairs. They are
pervaded by a coarse and repulsive vulgarity; they are seldom alluded to
in the conversation of the upper classes; and the ruling power in this
vast community is in danger of being abandoned to corrupt agitators and
noisy charlatans. The President, the Members of Congress, and to a still
greater extent the members of the State Legislatures, are the delegates
of a tyrannical majority rather than the representatives of the people.
The million succeeds in exacting an amount of cringing political
subserviency, in attempting to obtain which, in a like degree, few despots
have been successful.
The absence of a property qualification, the short term for which the
representatives are chosen, and the want, in many instances, of a
pecuniary independence among them, combined with a variety of other
circumstances, place the members of the Legislatures under the direct
control of the populace; they are its servile tools, and are subject to
its wayward impulses and its proverbial fickleness; hence the remarkable
absence of any fixed line of policy. The public acts of America are
isolated; they appear to be framed for the necessities of the moment,
under the influence of popular clamour or pressure; and sometimes seem
neither to recognise engagements entered into in the past, or the probable
course of events in the future. America does not possess a traditional
policy, and she does not recognise any broad and well-defined principle as
the rule for her conduct. The national acts of spoliation or meanness
which have been sanctioned by the Legislature may be distinctly traced to
the manner in which the primary elections are conducted. It is difficult,
if not impossible, for the European governments to do more than guess at
the part which America will take on any great question - whether, in the
event of a collision between nations, she will observe an impartial
neutrality, or throw the weight of her influence into the scale of liberty
or despotism.
It is to be feared that political morality is in a very low state. The
ballot secures the electors from even the breath of censure by making them
irresponsible; few men dare to be independent. The plea of expediency is
often used in extenuation of the grossest political dishonesty.
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