An American Politician

F >> F. Marion Crawford >> An American Politician

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Harrington had made many speeches in different parts of the country during
the election campaign, and had attracted much attention by his calm good
sense in such excited times. There was consequently a manifest desire
among senators and representatives to hear him speak in the Capitol, and
upon the day when the final election of the President took place he judged
that his opportunity had come. Josephine was in the ladies' gallery, and
as John rose to his feet he looked long and fixedly up to her, gathering
more strength to do well what he so much loved to do, from gazing at her
whom he loved better than power, or fame, or any earthly thing. His eyes
shone and his cheek paled; his old life with all its energy and active
work was associated in his mind with failure, with discontent, and with
solitude; his new life, with her by his side, was brilliant, happy, and
successful. He felt within him the strength to move thousands, the faith
in his cause and in his power to help it which culminates in great deeds.
His strong voice rang out, clear and far-heard, as he spoke.

"MR. PRESIDENT,--We are here to decide, on behalf of our country, a great
matter. Many of us, many more who are scattered over the land, will look
back upon this day as one of the most important in our times, and for
their sakes as well as our own we are bound to summon all our strength of
intelligence and all our calmness of judgment to aid us in our decision.

"The question in which a certain number of ourselves are to become
arbitrators is briefly this: Are we to act on this occasion like
partisans, straining every nerve for the advantage of our several parties?
or are we to act like free men, exerting our united forces in one
harmonious body for the immediate good of the whole country? The struggle
may seem at first sight to be a battle between the East, the West, and the
South. In sober earnest, it is a contest between the changing principles
of party politics on the one hand and the undying principle of freedom on
the other.

"I need not make any long statement of the case to you. We are here
assembled to elect a President. Our position is almost unprecedented in
the history of the country. Instead of acquiescing in the declared will of
the people, our fellow-citizens, we are told that the people's wish is
divided, and we are called upon to act spontaneously for the people, in
accordance with the constitution of our country. By our individual and
unhampered votes the life of the country is to be determined for the next
four years. Let us not forget the vast responsibility that is upon us. Let
us join our hands and say to each other, 'We are no longer Republicans,
nor Democrats, nor Independents--we are one party, the party of the Union,
and there are none against us.'

"A partisan is not necessarily a man who asserts a truth and defends it
with his whole strength. A partisan means one who takes up his position
with a party. There is a limit where a partisan becomes an asserter of
falsehood, and that limit is reached when a man resigns his own principles
into the judgment of another, his conscience into another's keeping; when
a man gives up free thought, free judgment, and free will in absolute and
blind adherence to a set of thoughts, judgments, and decisions over which
he exercises no control, and in the formation of which he has but one
voice in many millions. Every one remembers the fable of the old man who,
when dying, made his sons break their staves one by one, and then bade
them bind a bundle of others together, and to try and break them by one
effort. In the uniting of individuals in a party there is strength, but
there must also be complete unity. If the old man had bidden his sons bind
their staves in several bundles instead of in one, the result would have
been doubtful. That is what party spirit makes men do. Party spirit is a
universal solvent; it is the great acid, the _aqua fortis_ of
political alchemy, which eats through bands of steel and corrodes pillars
of iron in its acrid virulence, till the whole engine of a nation's
government is crumbled and dissolved into a shapeless and a worse than
useless mass of broken metal.

"Man is free, his will is free, his choice, his judgments, his capacity
for thought, and his power to profit by it are all as free as air, just so
long as he remembers that they are his own--no longer. When he forgets
that he is his own master, absolutely and entirely, he becomes another
man's slave.

"The contest here is between political passion roused to its fiercest
pitch by the antagonism of parties, and the universal liberty of opinion,
which we all say we possess, while so few of us dare honestly exercise it.
This passion, this political frenzy that seizes men and whirls them in its
eddies, is a most singular compound of patriotism, of enthusiasm for an
individual, and of the personal hopes, fears, generosity, and avarice of
the individual who is enthusiastic. It is a passion which, existing in
others, can be turned to account by the cool leader who does not possess
it, but which may too easily bring ruin upon the man who is led.

"The danger ahead is this same party spirit, this wild and thoughtless
frenzy in matters where unbiased judgment is most of all necessary. It is
a rock upon which we have split before; it has taken us many years to
recover from the shock, and now we are in danger of altogether losing our
political life upon the same reef. Unless we mend our course we inevitably
shall. Men forego every consideration of public honor and private
conscience for the sake of electing a party candidate. The man at the helm
of the party ship has declared that he will sail due north, or south, or
east, or west, whatever happens, and his crew laugh together and keep no
lookout; they even feel a certain pride in their leader, who thus defies
the accidents of nature for the sake of sailing in a fixed direction.

"What is the result of all this? It is here before us. The country is
splitting into parties. Three candidates are set up for the office of
President. Three distinct parties stand in the field, each one vowing
vengeance, secession, revolution, utter dismemberment of the Union, unless
its chosen champion is elected to be chief of the Executive Department. Is
this to be the life of our Republic in future? Is this all that so many
millions of free citizens can do for the public good and for public
harmony? What shall we gain by electing the candidate from the North, if
the defeated candidate from the South is determined to produce a
revolution; and if the disappointed candidate from the West threatens to
touch off the dry powder and spring the mine of a great western secession?
Have we not seen all this before? Has not the bitter cry of a nation's
broken heart gone up to heaven already in mortal agony for these very
things to which our uncontrollable political passions are hourly leading
us?

"The contest is between political passion on the one hand and universal
liberty on the other.

"Liberty in some countries is a kind of charade word, an anagram, a symbol
representing an imaginary quantity, a password invented by unhappy men to
express all that they do not possess; a term meaning in the minds of
slaves a conglomerate of conditions so absurd, of aspirations so futile,
of imaginary delights so fantastically unreasonable, that if the ideal
state of which the chained dreamers rave were realized but for one moment,
humanity would start in amazement at the first glimpse of so much
monstrosity, and by and by would hold its sides with laughter at the folly
of its deluded fellows. In most countries where liberty is talked of it is
but a dream, and such a dream as could only occur to the sickened fancy of
a generation of bondsmen. But it means something else with us. It is here,
in this country, in this capital, in this hall, it is in the air we
breathe, in the light we see, in the strong, free pulses of our blood; it
is the heritage of men whose sires died for it, whose fathers laid down
all they had for it, of men whose own veins have bled for it--and not in
vain. In these United States, liberty is a fact.

"We must decide quickly, then, between the conditions of our liberty and
the requirements of frantic political passion. We must decide between
peace and war, for that is where the issue will come in the end. Between
freedom, prosperity, and peace on the one side, and a civil war on the
other; an alternative so horrible and inhuman and hideous, that the very
mention of it makes brave men shiver in disgust at the memories the word
recalls. Do you think we are much further from it now than we were in
1860? Do you think we were far from it in 1876? It is a short step from
the threat to the deed when political passion is already turning to bitter
personal hate.

"In our times there is much talk of civilization and culture. Two words
define all that is necessary to be known about them. Civilization is
peace. The uncivilized state of man is incessant war. Culture is
conscience, because conscience means the exercise of honest judgment, and
an ignorant people can form no honest judgment of their own which can be
exercised.

"In a state of peace, educated and truthful men judge fairly, and act
sensibly on their decisions. In other words, the majority is right and
free. In times of war and in times of great ignorance majorities have
rarely been either free or right.

"It is a bad sign of the times when education increases and truth
disappears. They ought to grow together, for education means absolutely
nothing but the teaching and learning of what is true. If it does not mean
that, it means nothing. In some countries the idea of truth is coexistent
with the idea of destroying all existing forms of belief. Some silly
person recently went so far as to raise the cry in this country, 'Separate
Church and State!' If there is a country where they are absolutely
separated, it is ours; but let the beliefs of mankind take care of
themselves. I dare say there will be Christians left in the world even
when Professor Huxley has written his last book, and when Colonel
Ingersoll has delivered his last lecture. I am reminded of the Chinese
philosopher and political economist, who answered when he was asked about
religious matters: 'Do you understand this world so well that you need
occupy yourselves with another?'

"The issue turns upon no such absurdities, neither does it rest with any
consideration of so-called platforms--free trade, civil service, free
navigation, tariff reform, and all the rest of those things. The real
issue is between civilization and barbarism, between peace and war.

"Be warned in this great strait. I believe we need few principles, but
universal ones. I believe in the republic because it was founded in
simplicity, and has been built up in strength by the strongest of strong
men; because its existence proves the greatest truth with which we ever
have to do, namely, that men are born equal and free, although they may
grow up slaves to their evil passions, and become greater or less
according as they manfully put their hands to the plough, or ignobly lie
down and let themselves be trampled upon. The battle of life is to the
stronger, but no man is so weak that he cannot raise himself a little if
he will, according to the abilities that are born in him; and nowhere can
he raise himself so speedily and securely as on this free soil of ours.
Nowhere can he go so far without being molested; for nowhere can man put
himself so closely and trustfully in the keeping of nature, certain that
she will not fail him, certain that she will yield him a thousand fold for
his labor.

"There are indeed times in the history of a great institution when it is
just as well as necessary to reconsider the principles upon which it is
founded. There are times in the life of a great nation when it behooves
her chief men to examine and see whether the basis of her constitution is
a sound one, and whether she can continue to grow great without any change
in the fundamental conditions of her development. It is a bad and a
dangerous time for a growing nation, but it is an almost inevitable stage
in her life. Thank God, that time is past with us! Let us not think of the
possibility of exposing ourselves again to civil war as an alternative
against retrogression into barbarism.

"Civilization is peace, and to extend civilization is to increase the
security of property in the world--of property and life and conscience.
The natural and barbarous state of man is that where the human animal
satisfies its cravings without any thought of consequences. The cultivated
state is that where humanity has ceased to be merely animal, and considers
the consequences first and the cravings afterwards. Civilization unites
men so that they dwell together in harmony; to separate them into parties
that strive to annihilate each other is to undo the work of civilization,
to plunge the state into civil war; to hew it in pieces, and split it and
tear it to shreds, till the magnificent body of thinking beings, acting as
one man for the public good, is reduced to the miserable condition of a
handful of hostile tribes, whose very existence depends upon successful
robbery and well-timed violence.

"Party spirit, so long as it is only a force which binds together a number
of men of honest purposes and opinions, is a good thing, and it is by its
means that just and powerful majorities are formed and guided. But where
party spirit loses sight of the characters of men, and judges them
according as they are Republicans or Democrats, instead of considering
whether they are good or bad citizens; when party spirit becomes a machine
for obtaining power by fair or foul means, instead of a fixed principle
for upholding the fair against the foul--then there is great danger that
the majority itself is losing its liberty, and upon the liberty of
majorities depends ultimately the stability and prosperity of the
republic.

"Consider what is the history of the average politician to-day, of the man
whose personal character is as good as that of his neighbor, who has
always belonged to the same party, and who looks forward to the hope of
political distinction. Consider how he has struggled through all manner of
difficulties to his present position, striving always to maintain good
relations with the chiefs of his party, while often acknowledging in his
heart that he would act differently were his connection with those chiefs
a matter of less vital importance to himself. He probably will tell you
that his profession is politics. He has sacrificed much to obtain his seat
in Congress, or his position in office, and he knows that henceforth he
must live by it or else begin life over again in another sphere. At all
events, for a term of years, his personal prosperity depends upon the use
he can make of his hold upon the public goods. He is not individually to
be blamed, perhaps, for he follows a precedent as widely recognized as it
is universally pernicious. It is the system that is to be blamed, the
general belief that a man can, and justly may, support himself by clinging
to a set of principles of which he does not honestly approve; that he may
earn his daily meal, since it comes to that in the end, by doing jobs
which in the free state he would despise as unworthy, and by speaking
boldly in support of measures which he knows to be injurious to the
welfare of the country. That is the history, the epitome of the ends and
aims and manner of being of the average politician in our day. He has
ventured into the waters of political life, and they have risen around him
till he must use all his strength in keeping his head above them, though
the torrent carry him whither it will and whither he would not. There are
no compromises when a man is drowning.

"There are many who are not in any such position. There are men great and
honest, and disinterested in the highest sense of the word--men whose
whole lives prove it, whose whole record is one of honor and truth, whose
following consists of men they have themselves chosen as their friends. We
are not obliged to select a drowning man for our President; we can choose
a man who stands on his own feet upon dry ground.

"There is an old proverb which contains much wisdom: 'Tell me who are your
friends, and I will tell you what you are.' Is a man fit to stand at the
head of a community of men when he has associated with a set of parasites,
who live upon his leavings, and will starve him if they can, in order to
enjoy his portion? Consider what is the position of the President of the
United States. Think what vast power is placed in the hands of one man;
what vast interests of public and private good are at stake; what an
endless sequence of events and results of events must follow upon the
individual action of the chief of the Executive Department; and remember
how free and untrammeled that individual action is. A people who elect an
officer to such a position need surely to be cautious in their choice and
circumspect in their judgment of the man elected. They must satisfy
themselves about what he is likely to do by judging honestly what he has
done; they must know who are his friends, his supporters, his advisers, in
order to judge of the friends he will make. They must take into their
consideration also the character of his colleague, the vice-president, and
the effect upon the country and the country's relation with, the world,
should any disaster suddenly throw the vice-president into office. We
cannot afford to elect a vice-president who would destroy the national
credit in a week, should the President himself be overtaken by death. We
must remember to count the cost of what we are doing, not passing over one
item because another item seems just. We cannot overlook the future, nor
disregard the influence which our election has upon the next; the steps
which men, once in office, may take in order to secure to themselves
another term, or to strengthen the position of the men whom they desire to
succeed them.

"In a word, we must put forth all our strength. We must be cool, far-
sighted, and impartial in such times as these. And yet, how has this
campaign been hitherto conducted? Practically, by raising a party cry; by
exciting every species of evil passion of which man is capable; by
tickling the cupidity of one man and flattering the ambitions of another;
by intimidating the weak, and groveling before the strong; by every
species of fawning sycophancy on the one hand, and brutal overbearing
bullying on the other.

"Party, party, party! A man would rather commit a crime than vote against
his party. The evil runs through the country from East to West, from North
to South, eating at the nation's heartstrings, gnawing at her sinews, and
undermining her strength. The time is coming, is even now come, when two
or three parties no longer suffice to express the disunion of the Union.
There are three to-day: to-morrow there will be five, the next day ten,
twenty, a hundred, till every man's hand is against his fellow, and his
fellow's against him. The divisions have grown so wide that the majority
and the minority are but the extremities of a countless set of internecine
majorities and minorities.

"Members of parties are bound no longer by the honest determination to do
the right, to choose the right, and to uphold the right--they are bound by
fearful penalties to support their own man, were he the very chiefest
outcast of the earth, lest the man of another party be elected in his
place. The adverse candidate is perhaps avowedly better fitted for the
office, a hundred times more honest, more experienced, more worthy of
respect. But he belongs to the enemy. Down with him! let him perish in his
honesty and righteousness! There is no good in him, for he is a Democrat!
There is no good in him, for he is a Republican! He is a scoundrel, for he
is a Southerner! He is a thief, for he is a Northerner! He is the prince
of liars, for he comes from the West! He is the scum of mankind, for he is
from the East! The people rage and rend each other, and the frenzy grows
apace with the hour, till honor and justice, truth and manliness, are lost
together in the furious chaos of human elements. The tortured airs of
heaven howl out curses in a horrid unison, this fair free soil of ours,
dishonored and befouled, moans beneath our feet in a dismal drone of
hopeless woe; there is no rock or cavern or ghostly den of our mighty land
but hisses back the echo of some hideous curse, and hell itself is upon
earth, split and rent into multiplied hells.

"And the ultimate expression of the senses of these things is money. There
is the chiefest disgrace. We are not worse than the old nations, but we
have a right to be very much better; we have the obligation to be better,
the unchanging moral obligation which lies upon every man to use the
advantage he has. We alone among nations are free, we alone among nations
inhabit a quarter of the world by ourselves, and live and grow great in
our own way with no thought of the rest. Let us think more of living
greatly than of prosecuting greatness for the sake of its pecuniary
emoluments. Let us elect presidents who will give their efforts to making
us all great together, and not to making some citizens rich at the expense
of others who are also citizens. A President can do much toward either of
these results, bad or good. He has the future of the republic in his
hands, as well as the present. Let us be the richest among nations, since
the course of events makes us so, but let us not be the most sordid. Let
it never be said, in the land which has given birth to the only true
liberty the world has ever seen, that liberty can be sold for a few
dollars in the market-place, and bartered against the promise of four
years of civil employment at a small salary!

"This party spirit, this miserable craving for the good things that may be
extracted from the service of a party, has produced the crying evil of our
times. A certain class--a very large class--call our politics dirty, and
our politicians dishonest. Young men whose education and position in the
commonwealth entitle them to a voice in public matters withdraw entirely
from all contact with the real life of the country. Liberty has become a
leper, a blind outcast in the eyes of the gilded youth of to-day. She sits
apart in ashes and in rags, and asks a little charity of the richest of
her children--a miserable mother despised and cast out by her sons. They
will not own her for their mother, nor spare one crust to feed her from
their plenty. They pass by on the other side, staring in admiration at the
image they have set up for themselves--the image of what they consider
social excellence, an idol compounded of decayed customs, and breathing
the poisonous emanations of a dead world, a monument raised to the
prejudices of former times, to the petty thirst for aristocratic
distinctions which they cherish in their hearts, to their love of money,
show, superficial culture, and armorial bearings.

"Truly let them perish in the fruition of their contemptible desires! Let
them set up a thing called society and worship it; let them lose
themselves in the contemplation of objects whose beauty they can never
appreciate save by counting the cost; let them disgrace the names their
honest fathers bore, by striving to establish their descent from houses
stained with crime and denied with blood; let them disown their fathers
and spit in their mothers' faces,--but let them not call themselves free,
nor give themselves the airs of men. They toss their foolish heads in
scorn of all that a man holds truest and best. We can afford to let them
speak, if they please, even words of contempt and dishonor; we can afford
to let them say that in laboring for our country we are groveling in mud
and defiling our hands with impurity; but we cannot afford to let them
steal our children from us, nor to submit to the pestilent influence of
their corruption in our ranks. Those who would be of the republic must
labor for the public good, instead of insolently asserting that there is
no good in the public on which they have fattened and thriven so well.

"All honor to those who have set their faces against the growing evil, to
check it if they can, and to lay the foundation of a barrier against which
the tidal wave of corruption and dishonesty shall break in vain. All
praise to the brave men who might live in the indolent lotus-eating
atmosphere of wasteful idleness, but who have put their hand to the wheel
of state, determined to bear all their might upon the whirling spokes
rather than see the good ship go to pieces on the rock ahead. They have
begun a good work, and they have sown a good seed; they ask for no reward,
nor look for the reaping of the harvest. They mean to do right, and they
do it, because right is right, not because they expect to be rewarded with
the spoils or fed with fat tit-bits from the feast of party. Upon such men
as these, be they rich or poor, we must rely. The poor man can make
sacrifices as great as the rich, for he can forego for his country's sake,
the promise of ease and the hope of wealth as well as any million-maker in
the land.

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