We Do Not Like Universal Suffrage. We Do Not Like A Periodical Change In The First Magistrate; And We Like

Quite as little a periodical permanence in the political officers immediately under the chief magistrate; we are, in short, wedded

To our own forms, and therefore opposed by judgment to forms differing from our own. But I think we all acknowledge that the United States, burdened as they are with these political evils - as we think them - have grown in strength and material prosperity with a celerity of growth hitherto unknown among nations. We may dislike Americans personally, we may find ourselves uncomfortable when there, and unable to sympathize with them when away. We may believe them to be ambitious, unjust, self-idolatrous, or irreligious; but unless we throw our judgment altogether overboard, we cannot believe them to be a weak people, a poor people, a people with low spirits or with idle hands. Now to what is it that the government of a country should chiefly look? What special advantages do we expect from our own government? Is it not that we should be safe at home and respected abroad - that laws should be maintained, but that they should be so maintained that they should not be oppressive? There are, doubtless, countries in which the government professes to do much more than this for its people - countries in which the government is paternal; in which it regulates the religion of the people, and professes to enforce on all the national children respect for the governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters. But that is not our idea of a government.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 506 of 531
Words from 135424 to 135693 of 142339