The very
government itself seems an organized scramble, and Congress a boys'
debating-club, with the disadvantage of being reported. As our
party-creeds are commonly represented less by ideas than by persons,
(who are assumed, without too close a scrutiny, to be the exponents of
certain ideas,) our politics become personal and narrow to a degree
never paralleled, unless in ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. Our
Congress debates and our newspapers discuss, sometimes for day after
day, not questions of national interest, not what is wise and right,
but what the Honorable Lafayette Skreemer said on the stump, or bad
whiskey said for him, half a dozen years ago. If that personage,
outraged in all the finer sensibilities of our common nature, by
failing to get the contract for supplying the District Court-House at
Skreemeropolisville City with revolvers, was led to disparage the
union of these States, it is seized on as proof conclusive that the
party to which he belongs are so many Cat_a_lines,--for Congress is
unanimous only in misspelling the name of that oft-invoked
conspirator. The next Presidential Election looms always in advance,
so that we seem never to have an actual Chief Magistrate, but a
prospective one, looking to the chances of reelection, and mingling in
all the dirty intrigues of provincial politics with an unhappy talent
for making them dirtier. The cheating mirage of the White House lures
our public men away from present duties and obligations; and if
matters go on as they have gone, we shall need a Committee of Congress
to count the spoons in the public plate-closet, whenever a President
goes out of office,--with a policeman to watch every member of the
Committee.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279