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actually assert their supremacy, except for moments of time, in great political communities; and this is especially so in such as are so peculiarly organized as the United States. The idea that since Jackson's time the supreme power has in reality lain in the hands of the masses, is a piece of deception as great as it is pernicious; and yet it is one which the permanent heirs of Jackson's power have, in great part, practiced even to the present day on the masses of the American people. The undeniable and sadly plain fact is, that since that time the people have begun to exchange the leadership of a small number of statesmen and politicians of a higher order for the rule of an ever increasing crowd of politicians of high and low degree, down even to the pothouse politician and the common thief, in the protecting mantle of demagogism. When people from the region lying between the limits of society and the house of correction obtained a controlling influence in politics, this at first appeared as the consequence of an unfortunate condition of local affairs. And that politics became a profession in which mediocrity—on an ever descending scale-dominated, and moral laxity became the rule, if not a requisite, people refused to consider an unfortunate condition so long as a life devoted to acquisition approached nearer to the goal of its satisfaction. Live and let live,had become a general maxim to such an extent that the politicians marvelled at even the uprising in which the people tore to pieces the bridle to which they had been so long used, when it looked as if they were to be ridden into the abyss to which they had, since the origin of the republic, in part, been drawn nearer, and to which, in part, they had nearer and nearer glided.

A popular state in which the generality drops into a dolce far niente in relation to politics, seeing in the election of their legislators, in universal suffrage and the like, in and

11860 and 1861.

of themselves, the guaranties of freedom, is ever on a declivitous path; one on which it is always difficult to reverse one's course, and on which this, even under the most favorable circumstances, can be done only gradually. The condition precedent of a healthy popular state is not rights, but the reasonable assumption of duties by means of which rights become reasonable means to the attainment of the ends of the state and of society. Popular sovereignty, in the sense that not only the general direction of politics is determined by the will of the majority, but that this will minutely prescribes the conduct of the factors of government in the questions that arise in any manner, in the form of "public opinion," for instance, would be not only a dreadful condition of things; it is impossible. But when, in a popular state, politics become a despised trade, the state is brought face to face with the question of life or death; for to the extent that this has really happened,' self-government is only

'This is even yet the case in the United States to a much smaller extent than persons of superficial information commonly believe. To be called a "politician," is, indeed, as great an offense as to be called a "Jew," in certain circles. But it is only the mass of politicians, not politics, that are despised. Men like Charles Francis Adams, Schurz, Trumbull, etc., are yet held in high estimation, and the people are proud of them. When I first wrote these lines, Charles Sumner was still living, and I had placed his name after that of Adams. I may here cite a few words from Schurz's eulogy on Sumner, pronounced at Boston. They are not mere rhetorical phrases, but correctly describe the real attitude of the people towards such politicians: "When you, Mr. Mayor, in the name of the city government of Boston, invited me to interpret that which millions think and feel, I thanked you for the proud privilege you had conferred upon me, and the invitation appealed so irresistibly to my friendship for the man we had lost, that I could not decline it. And yet, the thought struck me that you might have prepared a greater triumph to his memory had you summoned, not me, his friend, but one of those who had stood against him in the struggles of his life, to bear testimony to Charles Sumner's virtues. There are many among them to-day to whose sense of justice you might have safely confided the office, which to me is a task of love."

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a shadow without substance; but a healthy popular state without real self-government is a contradiction in terms.

But the process through which the life of a nation goes is not measured by days or by a few years. In the case of a people who bear within themselves the conditions necessary to the building up of a healthy popular state in a high degree, and who have already, in part, made such a state an actuality, decades, even in the most unfavorable case, must elapse before they decline politically to such an extent that a broad chasm separates their social from their political life, and before an organized band of trading politicians can become completely master of them. The rapid and universal decline of a healthy political spirit, the first clear symptom of which was the election of Jackson twice to the presidency, and which was greatly promoted by his administration, caused the growing influence of the real trading politicians, with their bread-and-butter principles, to take the appearance at first of something almost accidental. The greatest immediate gain from this revolution in the condition of affairs, which was being accomplished, was made by those who knew how to employ these elements in their service. The shallowing, materializing, demoralizing transformation of the American democracy, for which a broad path was paved by Jackson's administration, first found its most disastrous consequences in the hands of the southern states, by which it was turned to account in the promotion of the cause of slavery.

CHAPTER II.

THE ABOLITIONISTS AND THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN CONGRESS.

While the reign of Andrew Jackson paved the way on which the slave-holding interest ascended to the zenith of its supremacy over the Union, there arose, at the same time, in the body of the abolitionists, the enemy which undermined the firm ground under the feet of that same slaveholding interest.

The expression, "abolition of slavery," is to be met with even before the adoption of the constitution. But the word "abolitionism," as descriptive of a definite political programme, occurs for the first time in this period. When Goodell, Wilson and others frequently speak of the older antislavery societies as "abolition societies," their language only seems to render the understanding of the development of the slavery question more difficult. Those older anti-slavery societies had simply a programme of action based mainly on humanitarian motives. The history of the origin of the abolitionists, on the other hand, is a political process of reaction; although, with the peculiar double nature of the slavery question, for reasons not far to seek, its moral side. first became the basis of operation.

The debates on the Missouri question had called forth reflections here and there which could not be smothered by any legislative compact. People at the north had not forgotten the manner in which the so-called slavery compromises had been wrested from the constitution by the south. Its obstinate aut-aut in the Philadelphia convention was, in great part, reduced to the same motives of action which

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were the decisive ones in the question of the representation of the smaller states; the southern states wanted generally to insure to themselves an equal weight in the government of the Union, and therefore could not completely renounce the representation of their slaves. The idea of any special jeopardy of the slave-holding interest was much farther from their minds. Now, for the first time, people began to perceive with horror that the rule of slavery over the slaveholders threatened to become as absolute as the rule of the latter over their slaves. But, after the storm had blown over, most of them again found rest in the consideration, that submission to the law was both a Christian and a citi zen's duty, and that the nature of the Union absolved the north of all responsibility for the slavery-sins of the south. But not all were satisfied with this. To object to what political sages taught concerning constitutional law in the matter of the slavery question, did not at first enter their minds. Their rights as citizens they first submitted to an independent examination, when it was sought to prevent their performing their duties as men and Christians, as they understood them. The blow with which the south struck the north down, woke up both the religious and political conscience of the people even where such an effect was least expected. The powerful and the wise were felled to the ground, and from the little and weak there rose up men who, with the weapons of Christian morality, resumed the battle undaunted. As missionaries, beseeching and exhorting men to do that which they professed with their lips, the first abolitionists entered on their career. People made martyrs of them, and martyrdom transformed them into agitators, with the indomitable energy of religious fanaticism.

The immediate precursor, and, in a certain sense, the father of the abolitionists, was Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, born in New Jersey. In Wheeling, West Virginia, where