had but too much occasion to observe—how this practice of flattering the people from the rostrum is accounted for, and, as a matter of fact, smiled at by citizens of the United States. I know that it is considered as a mode, inseparable from the philosophy of politics there. I dissent from this view altogether. I see that the remedy lies, not wholly where remedies for the oppression of severe natural laws lie—in a new combination of outward circumstances—but in the individual human will. The people may have honest orators if they choose to demand to hear the truth. The people will gladly hear the truth, if the appointed orator will lay aside selfish fears and desires, and use his high privilege of speaking from the bottom of his soul. If, in simplicity, he delivers to the people his true and best self, he is certain to gain the convictions of many, and the sympathies of all; and his soul will be clear of the guilt of deepening the pit under the feet of the people, while trying to persuade them that they are treading on firm ground. What is to be said of guides who dig pitfalls?
The day closed delightfully. Almost everybody went to pay respect to an aged lady, then eighty-eight, a regular descendant of one of the pilgrims. She was confined to the sofa, but retained much beauty, and abundant cheerfulness. She was delighted to receive us, and to sympathise in those pleasures of the day which she could not share. I had the honour of sitting in the chair which her ancestor brought over from England, and of feeling the staple by which it was fastened in the Mayflower.
The dinner being over, the gentlemen returned to their several abodes, to escort the ladies to the ball in Pilgrim Hall. I went, with a party of seven others, in a stage coach; every carriage, native and exotic, being in requisition to fill the ball-room, from which no one was excluded. It was the only in-door festival, except the President's levee, where I witnessed an absolutely general admission; and its aspect and conduct were, in the highest degree, creditable to the intelligence and manners of the community. There were families from the islands in the bay, and other country residences, whence the inhabitants seldom emerge, except for this festival. The dress of some of the young ladies was peculiar, and their glee was very visible; but I saw absolutely no vulgarity. There was much beauty, and much elegance among the young ladies, and the manners of their parents were unexceptionable. There was evidence in the dancing, of the "intensity" of which we had heard so much in the morning. The lads and lasses looked as if they meant never to tire; but this enjoyment of the exercise pleased me much more than the affectation of dancing, which is now fashionable in the large cities. I never expect to see a more joyous and unexceptionable piece of festivity than the Pilgrim ball of 1835.
The next day, the harbour was all frozen over; and the memory of the blue, rippling sea of Plymouth, is therefore, with me, sacred to Forefathers' Day.
I was frequently reminded by friends of what is undoubtedly very true, the great perils of office in the United States, as an excuse for the want of honesty in officials. It is perfectly true that it is ruin to a professional man without fortune, to enter public life for a time, and then be driven back into private life. I knew a senator of the United States who had served for nearly his twice six years, and who then had to begin life again, as regarded his profession. I knew a representative of the United States, a wealthy man, with a large family, who is doubting still, as he has been for a few years past, whether he shall give up commerce or public life, or go on trying to hold them both. He is rich enough to devote himself to public life; but at the very next election after he has relinquished his commercial affairs, he may be thrown out of politics. I see what temptations arise in such cases, to strain a few points, in order to remain in the public eye; and I am willing to allow for the strength of the temptation.
But the part for honest men to take is to expose the peril, to the end that the majority may find a remedy; and not to sanction it by yielding to it. Let the attention of the people be drawn towards the salaries of office, that they may discover whether they are too low; which is best, that adventurers of bad character should now and then get into office, because they have not reputation enough to obtain a living by other means, or that honest and intelligent men should be kept out, because the prizes of office are engrossed by more highly educated men; and whether the rewards of office are kept low by the democratic party, for the sake of putting in what their opponents call 'adventurers,' or by the aristocratic, with the hope of offices being engrossed by the men of private fortune. Let the true state of the case, according to each official's view of it, be presented to the people, rather than any countenance be given to the present dreadful practice of wheedling and flattery; and the perils of office will be, by some means, lessened.
The popular scandal against the people of the United States, that they boast intolerably of their national institutions and character, appears to me untrue: but I see how it has arisen. Foreigners, especially the English, are partly to blame for this. They enter the United States with an idea that a republic is a vulgar thing: and some take no pains to conceal their thought. To an American, nothing is more venerable than a republic. The native and the stranger set out on a misunderstanding. The English attacks, the American defends, and, perhaps, boasts. But the vain-glorious flattery of their public orators is the more abundant source of this reproach; and it rests with the people to redeem themselves from it. For my own part, I remember no single instance of patriotic boasting, from man, woman, or child, except from the rostrum; but from thence there was poured enough to spoil the auditory for life, if they had been simple enough to believe what they were told. But they were not.
SECTION II.
NEWSPAPERS.
Side by side with the sinners of the rostrum, stand the sinners of the newspaper press. The case is clear, and needs little remark or illustration. The profligacy of newspapers, wherever they exist, is a universal complaint; and, of all newspaper pressed I never heard any one deny that the American is the worst. Of course, this depravity being so general throughout the country, it must be occasioned by some overpowering force of circumstances. The causes are various; and it is a testimony to the strength and purity of the democratic sentiment in the country, that the republic has not been overthrown by its newspapers.
While the population is so scattered as it now is, throughout the greater part of the Union, nothing is easier than to make the people know only one side of a question; few things are easier than to keep from them altogether the knowledge of any particular affair; and, worse than all, on them may easily be practised the discovery that lies may work their intended effect, before the truth can overtake them.
It is hard to tell which is worst; the wide diffusion of things that are not true, or the suppression of things that are true. It is no secret that some able personage at Washington writes letters on the politics and politicians of the general government, and sends them to the remotest corners of the Union, to appear in their newspapers; after which, they are collected in the administration newspaper at Washington, as testimonies of public opinion in the respective districts where they appear. It is no secret that the newspapers of the south keep out of their columns all information which might enlighten their readers, near and afar, as to the real state of society at home. I can testify to the remarkable events which occur in the southern States, unnoticed by any press, and transpiring only through accident. Two men were burned alive, without trial, by the gentlemen of Mobile, just before my arrival there; and no newspaper even alluded to the circumstance, till, many months after, a brief and obscure paragraph, in a northern journal, treated it as a matter of hearsay.
It is no secret that the systematic abuse with which the newspapers of one side assail every candidate coming forward on the other, is the cause of many honourable men, who have a regard to their reputation, being deterred from entering public life; and of the people being thus deprived of some better servants than any they have. Though a faithful public servant should be able to endure all the consequences of faithful service, yet there are many cases where men, undecided as to their choice of public and private life, are fixed in favour of the latter
