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and see how it shall work; it no longer asks the governments of the Old World to be considerate of its youth, and grant it a probationary place in their councils. In its Constitution it has given to philosophers the most important contribution of modern times to the science of government: by that Constitution it tests all other governments, however ancient and revered, and, in virtue of this organized nationality, sits among the nations an arbiter and a judge by the same right that they claim for themselves.1 The United States are not making an experiment in government for mankind to judge of: they are not on trial, and need no plea. They have accomplished a fact in government that now belongs to the science and history of the world. Though the Constitution of the United States is only eighty-five years old, its spirit is as old as the settlement of the country more than two hundred and sixty years ago. It was the consummate flower of a political society, that, drawing the sap of liberty from the best stock of Europe, had grown with the vigor of a new soil for nearly two centuries. Therefore it is impossible to separate the Constitution from the life of the nation, or this from the nations and ages that had gone before. The framers of the Constitution, indeed, did not consider their work perfect, since they incorporated with the instrument a provision for amending it; and the people of the United States have shown that they do not worship a bit of parchment, since they have amended their Constitution more than once, and are likely to amend it again. This Constitution might not be exactly fitted to any other nation, nor any other nation exactly fitted for such a government; for the government of a people must grow out of their conditions of race, territory, temperament, education, society, development. But, after all these qualifications and abatements, it remains true, that in reconciling liberty with order, individual well-being with the public good, local independence with collective power, the separate responsibility of the parts of government with the joint efficiency of the whole, the Constitution of the United States providing a government by the people, of the people, for the people, is the great contribution of modern

1 See note at the end of the Lecture.

times to the science of government, and "the most sacred political document in the whole world."

Theoretically the Constitution speaks for itself, and is for the discussions of schools of political ethics; but it is not too soon to speak of the Constitution practically in these terms of confidence. Trial is no less a test of stability than time. The government of the United States has been tested by every form of mischief and peril that could threaten its existence. Measured by events, it has gone through a vast cycle of national experiences. It is my purpose, in this Lecture, to set in array these vicissitudes of the republic, and leave the facts to answer the predictions of its enemies, and allay the fears of its friends.

We are told that party-spirit will prove our ruin; that the strife of factions, which wrought such mischief in Greece and Rome, in the Italian republics of the middle ages, in the French republic, is intensified in the United States by the license of the press, by the personalities of political campaigns, and by the spoils of office held up as a prize to the winning party; and that this strife must lead at length to blows, to usurpation, or the despotism of a mob. Washington warned his countrymen "in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party," as the "worst enemy" of popular governments. "A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."1

Were we wholly without experience, the occasional violence of party-spirit and the indecencies of the political press might alarm us for the peace of the country and the preservation of public morals. Whatever our party affinities, or our personal feelings towards a particular President, who can read without a feeling of humiliation and disgust such language as this spoken of any incumbent of that high office?" In all this affair the language of the President has been that of a heartless despot, solely occupied with the preservation of his own authority. Ambition is his crime, and it will be his punishment too. Intrigue is his native element; and intrigue will confound his tricks, and deprive him of his power. He governs by

1 Farewell Address.

means of corruption; and his immoral practices will redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct in the political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He succeeded at the time: but the hour of retribution approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement, where he may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely to remain forever unacquainted."1 Now, do not mistake this for a philippic against "Cæsarism," under spasms of angina pectoris. It was delivered against Andrew Jackson. De Tocqueville quotes it as the first specimen of the American press that met his eyes on landing in New York in 1831: so the nation has survived that outburst for nearly half a century.

Did ever party-spirit run higher than at the first election of Jackson, and during his controversy with the Bank of the United States? Yet what does the present generation know or care about it all? And what shall we say of an open proposal to go to the seat of government, and drag the President from his chair? Did not such violence of party-zeal threaten the overthrow of the Constitution and the Union? But this was not a conspiracy to kidnap Mr. Lincoln in time of war: it was the talk of "solid men of Boston" against John Adams; and the nation has survived it seventy-five years

In December, 1875, the House of Representatives passed a vote against a third term of the presidential office, -a topic that has been discussed in the newspapers in no measured words. One or two specimens of the language which the notion of a third candidacy has called forth are worth quoting here. "The President is totally destitute of merit, either as a soldier or a statesman: he has violated the Constitution, and perverted his office to his private use." "The remaining of no man in office is necessary to the success of the government. The people would be in a calamitous situation if one man were essential to the existence of the government. May the President be happy in his retirement! but let him retire." But this was said of George Washington when he insisted on

1 Democracy in America, i. 233, Bowen's edition.

retiring, and Congress proposed resolutions of regret at his withdrawal from public life, and of thanks and admiration for his eminent services.1

2

John Adams has left it on record, that in 1793, when Genet sought to coerce the government into a league with France, thousands of people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution in the government, or compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revolution, and against England." And of a like incident to himself he says, "Ten thousand people, and perhaps many more, were parading the streets of Philadelphia on the evening of my Fast Day, when even Gov. Mifflin thought it his duty to order a patrol of horse and foot to preserve the peace; when Market Street was as full of men as could stand by one another, and even before my door; when some of my domestics, in frenzy, determined to sacrifice their lives in my defence; when all were ready to make a desperate sally among the multitude, and some were with difficulty and danger dragged back by the others; when I myself judged it prudent and necessary to order chests of arms from the War Office to be brought through by lanes and back-doors, determined to defend my house at the expense of my life, and the lives of the few, very few domestics and friends within it. " 3 All that was nearly eighty years ago; and who fears to-day that the National Government will be dethroned by a mob? The Constitution has long lived down that sort of party frenzy.

Never did the spirit of party rage more furiously than in the contest for the presidency between Adams and Jefferson. The latter as the leader of the Democracy, and supposed to be in sympathy with French ideas, was looked upon by Federalists as the incarnation of evil. One New-England minister refused to baptize a child Thomas Jefferson, saying he would rather call it Beelzebub. Another lifted up his dying head to say, "I die loving the Lord Jesus Christ, and hating the Devil and Tom Jefferson." The contest sowed enmity between those two

1 Irving's Life of Washington, v. 241, 260.

2 Letter to Jefferson: Jefferson's Works, vol. vi. 155.

8 Ibid.

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noble patriots. But years after we find them solacing each other in old age with a correspondence of tender friendship. In one of these letters, Jefferson alludes to that day of strife in these words: "Here you and I separated for the first time. . . . We suffered ourselves to be passive subjects of public discussion; and those discussions, whether relating to men, measures, or opinions, were conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness, and an indecency, which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason and of wrath were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions. . . I have no stomach to revive the memory of that day. . . . No circumstances have suspended for one moment my sincere esteem for you, and I now salute you with unchanged affection and respect."1 There is no lasting peril in parties whose leaders end in cuddling one another for the tomb. The nation has survived all the turmoils of Adams and Jefferson, and can do honor to each without jealousy of the other. No, no! it is not in party-spirit that the doom or disruption of the country lies. Parties are so nearly balanced as to be always a mutual check: they are so parcelled out among districts, counties, states, and so restrained by the elective apparatus for the senate and the presidency, that their majorities in one quarter may be neutralized in another. They cannot centralize; and, there being no army to be bought or used, they cannot terrorize. No mob can rush in upon the government with shouts of “Le déchéance!" No Monk can bring his hired soldiery to overawe or disperse the Parliament.

On the matter of party-spirit the anxious American may re-assure himself from the experience of countries other than his own. The German Reichstag is a creation of yesterday. Its members are hardly out of leadingstrings. But what scenes of turbulence have already been witnessed there under the combined assault of Ultramontranes and the Fortschritts party upon Prince Bismarck's policy! What a spectacle is a party-bout in the French Chamber of Deputies! As to party-spirit in England, we have a telling witness in Lord Macaulay.

1 Jefferson's Works, vol. vi. 37, 144.

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