The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird
























































































































 -  Where the highest offices in the State are neither lucrative enough
nor permanent enough to tempt ambition - where, in addition - Page 222
The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird - Page 222 of 249 - First - Home

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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.

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