The
Politics Of The Country And The Nature Of Its Constitution Are
Familiar To Every Laborer.
The very wording of the Declaration of
Independence is in the memory of every lad of sixteen.
Boys and
girls of a younger age than that know why Slidell and Mason were
arrested, and will tell you why they should have been given up, or
why they should have been held in durance. The question of the war
with England is debated by every native pavior and hodman of New
York.
I know what Englishmen will say in answer to this. They will
declare that they do not want their paviors and hodmen to talk
politics; that they are as well pleased that their coachmen and
cooks should not always have a newspaper in their hands; that
private soldiers will fight as well, and obey better, if they are
not trained to discuss the causes which have brought them into the
field. An English gentleman will think that his gardener will be a
better gardener without than with any excessive political ardor,
and the English lady will prefer that her housemaid shall not have
a very pronounced opinion of her own as to the capabilities of the
cabinet ministers. But I would submit to all Englishmen and
English women who may look at these pages whether such an opinion
or feeling on their part bears much, or even at all, upon the
subject. I am not saying that the man who is driven in the coach
is better off because his coachman reads the paper, but that the
coachman himself who reads the paper is better off than the
coachman who does not and cannot.
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