men cannot serve each other in their political relations without being corrupted.
The primary mistake is in supposing that men cannot bear to hear the truth. It has become the established method of seeking office, not only to declare a coincidence of opinion with the supposed majority, on the great topics on which the candidate will have to speak and act while in office, but to deny, or conceal, or assert anything else which it is supposed will please the same majority. The consequence is, that the best men are not in office. The morally inferior who succeed, use their power for selfish purposes, to a sufficient extent to corrupt their constituents, in their turn. I scarcely knew, at first, how to understand the political conversations which I heard in travelling. If a citizen told another that A. had voted in a particular manner, the other invariably began to account for the vote. A. had voted thus to please B., because B.'s influence was wanted for the benefit of C., who had promised so and so to A.'s brother, or son, or nephew, or leading section of constituents. A reason for a vote, or other public proceeding, must always be found; and any reason seemed to be taken up rather than the obvious one, that a man votes according to the decision of his reason and conscience. I often mentioned this to men in office, or seeking to be so; and they received it with a smile or a laugh which wrung my heart. Of all heart-withering things, political scepticism in a republic is one of the most painful. I told Mr. Clay my observations in both kinds. "Let them laugh!" cried he, with an honourable warmth: "and do you go on requiring honesty; and you will find it." He is right: but those who would find the highest integrity had bettor not begin their observations on office-holders, much less on office-seekers, as a class. The office-holder finds, too often, that it may be easier to get into office than to have power to discharge its duties when there: and then the temptation to subservience, to dishonest silence, is well nigh too strong for mortal man. The office-seeker stands committed as desiring something for which he is ready to sacrifice his business or profession, his ease, his leisure, and the quietness of his reputation. He stands forth as either an adventurer, a man of ambition, or of self-sacrificing patriotism. Being once thus committed, failure is mortifying, and the allurement to compromise, in order to success, is powerful. Once in public life, the politician is committed for ever, whether he immediately perceives this, or not. Almost every public man of my acquaintance owned to me the difficulty of retiring—in mind, if not in presence—after the possession of a public trust. This painful hankering is part of the price to be paid for the honours of public service: and I am disposed to think that it is almost universal; that scarcely any man knows quiet and content, from the moment of the success of his first election. The most modest men shrink from thus committing themselves. The most learned men, generally speaking, devote themselves, in preference, to professions. The most conscientious men, generally speaking, shun the snares which fatally beset public life, at present, in the United States.
A gentleman of the latter class, whose talents and character would procure him extensive and hearty support, if he desired it, told me, that he would never serve in office, because he believes it to be the destruction of moral independence: he pointed out to me three friends of his, men of remarkable talent, all in public life. "Look at them," said he, "and see what they might have been! Yet A. is a slave, B. is a slave, and C. is a worm in the dust." Too true.
Here is a grievous misfortune to the republic! My friend ascribes it to the want of protection from his neighbours, to which a man is exposed from the want of caste. This will never do. A crown and sceptre would be about as desirable in a republic as caste. If men would only try the effect of faith in one another, I believe they would take rank, and yield protection, with more precision and efficacy than by any manifestation of the exclusive spirit that was ever witnessed. Of course, this proposal will be called "Quixotic;" that convenient term which covers things the most serious and the most absurd, the wisest and the wildest. I am strengthened in my suggestion by a recurrence to the first principles of society in the United States, according to which I find that "rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and that the theory is, that the best men are chosen to serve. Both these pre-suppose mutual faith. Let the governed once require honesty as a condition of their consent; let them once choose the best men, according to their most conscientious conviction, and there will be an end of this insulting and disgusting political scepticism. Adventurers and ambitious men there will still be; but they will not taint the character of the class. Better men, who will respect their constituents, without fearing or flattering them, will foster the generous mutual faith which is now so grievously wanting; and the spirit of the constitution, now drooping in some of its most important departments, will revive.
I write more in hope than in immediate expectation. I saw much ground for hope, but very much also for grief. Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them. Nothing can be more disgusting than the contrast between the drawing-room gentleman, at ease among friends, and the same person courting the people, on a public occasion. The only comfort was a strong internal persuasion that the people do not like to be courted thus. They have been so long used to it, that they receive it as a matter of course; but, I believe, if a candidate should offer, who should make no professions but of his opinions, and his honest intentions of carrying them out; if he should respect the people as men, not as voters, and inform them truly of his views of their condition and prospects, they would recognise him at once as their best friend. He might, notwithstanding, lose his election; for the people must have time to recover, or to attain simplicity; but he would serve them better by losing his election thus, than by the longest and most faithful service in public life.
I have often wondered whether a gentleman at Laporte, in Indiana, who advertised his desire to be sheriff, gained his election. He declared in his advertisement that he had not been largely solicited, but that it was his own desire that he should be sheriff: he would not promise to do away with mosquitoes, ague, and fever, but only to do his duty. This candidate has his own way of flattering his constituents.
A gentleman of considerable reputation offered, last year, to deliver a lecture, in a Lyceum, in Massachusetts. It was upon the French Revolution; and on various accounts curious. There was no mention of the causes of the Revolution, except in a parenthesis of one sentence, where he intimated that French society was not in harmony with the spirit of the age. He sketched almost every body concerned, except the Queen. The most singular part, perhaps, was his estimate of the military talents of Napoleon. He exalted them much, and declared him a greater general than Wellington, but not so great as Washington. The audience was large and respectable. I knew a great many of the persons present, and found that none of them liked the lecture.
I attended another Lyceum lecture in Massachusetts. An agent of the Colonisation Society lectured; and, when he had done, introduced a clergyman of colour, who had just returned from Liberia, and could give an account of the colony in its then present state. As soon as this gentleman came forward, a party among the audience rose, and went out, with much ostentation of noise. Mr. Wilson broke off till he could be again heard, and then observed in a low voice, "that would not have been done in Africa;" upon which, there was an uproar of applause, prolonged and renewed. All the evidence on the subject that I could collect, went to prove that the people can bear, and do prefer to hear, the truth. It is a crime to withhold it from them; and a double crime to substitute flattery.
The tone of the orations was the sole, but great drawback from the enjoyment of the popular festivals I witnessed. I missed the celebration of the 4th of July—both years; being, the first year, among the Virginia mountains, (where the only signs of festivity which I saw, were some slaves dressing up a marquee, in which their masters were to feast, after having read, from the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created free and equal, and that rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;) and the second year on the lakes, arriving at Mackinaw too late in the evening of the great day for any celebration that might have taken place. But I was at two remarkable festivals, and heard two very remarkable orations. They were represented to me as fair or favourable specimens of that kind of address; and, to judge by the general sum of those which I read and heard, they were so.
The valley
