sacred. According to our view, there is no foundation for an argument in favor of other forms of government, growing out of the necessity or the existence of an authority above the people; for, in reality and in theory, it exists in one case as well as in the other.

The spirit of this tendency of our politics, which we have spoken of as existing in some quarters, would be to make every one an office-holder and partner in the administration of the government. The idea held out is, that, in that case, each would be in a situation to take the best care of his own interest, which would be consistent with providing for the interest of all. Since the officers of the government, and the government itself, promote the general interest, they are a species of property in which the people have invested, and of which they ought to divide the emoluments. If there is any profit in the business, why not share it among all concerned? Now, in our opinion, offices are not, and cannot be made, property in the hands of the people, or of any portion of them. Property is a possession, something subjected, belonging to one, for which he is accountable to no other. So far as it is to be accounted for, it is not property, but a trust. Such are offices; sometimes an honor, sometimes a duty, always a trust. Nobody has an absolute right to get a living by governing others, nor has anybody such a right to confer. And nobody can get a living by governing themselves, neither the people nor anybody else. They receive their share of the emoluments of office, in the benefits which the discharge of its duties produces; if the office does not produce them, it ought not to exist. In the matter of government, there are certain things to be done; the people require that they should be done efficiently and cheaply, and that certain other things should not be done. They appoint some to do the things which they desire to have done, and they retain in their own hands the security against the perpetration of such as they wish to avoid. They do not require to do any thing themselves. They have provided against it. They have taken care that the bounds of each separate authority, each office, shall be accurately defined, and that they shall not be outstepped. Does any one suppose that a government formed upon the

plan of a universal partnership could answer the purpose, or would exist for a single day? Such a government would be a sentence of barbarism. Society could not make a step in advance under such a constitution. What is everybody's business is nobody's; and the nearer it comes to being anybody's business, the less is the chance of its being well done. And whatever the share assigned by the theory of the constitution to the people, government is not here, more than elsewhere, a mere matter of convention and agreement; but it has deep foundations in reality and necessity. Special education and experience, talent, energy, and decision, and natural superiority take up the business of government, and sustain it; and whoever desires it, it is impossible to dislodge them from their post. But the people love to avail themselves of such qualities, for this is the natural order of things. But their own life is elsewhere. Governing each other is a very small part of the business of mankind upon earth. We have all of us objects far dearer to our hearts; and political liberty is valuable only as the means of accomplishing other things in the existence of individuals and nations- their moral elevation, the spread of civilization, the diffusion of comfort and content, and the maintenance of national honor. To obtain such results, perhaps no amount of political labor is too great; but when it is dignified by no such objects, and sweetened by no such enjoyments, it is hard to find a way of life more hollow and unprofitable than political excitement. It is emphatically a barren sceptre, and its apples are of ashes; no heart is so cold, no mind so insensible to all that adorns and beautifies human nature and human life, as his who runs after the embraces of this cloudy goddess. Whenever the political element is developed to such an excess in a nation as to absorb its whole disposable activity, instead of being a blessing, it becomes an intolerable burden. The nation no longer makes any advances in those things which the consciousness of each individual declares are only truly desirable, and life among them loses not only its happiness, but its strength. Where there is nothing worth having, there is nothing worth laboring or fighting for. Such a people is not only preparing itself to fall under a master, but it invariably welcomes the hand

which relieves it of the unnatural labor of governing itself. There are countries, at this moment, in Europe, so exhausted with the conflict of parties, so weary of political warfare, as to be equally incapable of forming a solid government, or of resisting the first faction that catches the reins of power. But whatever attention politics have attracted among us, we are far from such a state. Indeed, the real life of this people is as much apart from the affairs of the government as that of any people under heaven. In no other country is there such an exuberance of animation in all other departments of thought and activity, away from official encouragement or control. It is not the government which has made our roads, our mills, our cities which has felled the forest and extended the area of civilization, whatever it may have done for that of freedom. These things are the results of the spirit and energy of the people, and they are what really occupy their hearts. No doubt, this unexampled activity has been stimulated by our political institutions; but it is because politics have been kept in their place. They have been, and are, for the great body of the nation, an instrument and not an object, and are used as means to an end. The separation is carried so far, that our great men of business, the characteristic production and personification of the American system of culture and society, are in the habit of looking down upon politics and its concerns as beneath their attention, and scornfully abandon them to an inferior order of men. We are sorry for it; for if, in consequence of this abandonment, the political direction should ever be brought into conflict with our industrial interests, we should be in a situation like that of France before the late events which brought on an imperial constitution.

If there is a class in the community whose interests, and whose alone, are promoted by the dissemination of the idea that the people and the government are the same thing, there can be no great risk in charging it upon them; particularly if they are powerful enough to put it in vogue, and if their influence is known to be excited in this general direction. There is such a class- the class of candidates for office-a class both numerous and powerful. Forced to carry on an

incessant warfare against enemies above and below, the instinct of discipline has drilled them into order and prescribed for them a plan of operations. For the interests of the holders of office are not their interests, and as for those of the people, they enter not into their counsel. The offices are few, but candidates many. Some ability, some merit, or at least good luck, are necessary to obtain office; but candidatures are open to everybody. Great are the labors of canvassing, and greater the uncertainty of success. In such circumstances, it is according to the best mercantile principles and practice to contrive some way to equalize the gains for the sake of escaping the losses. Good business men insure; cunning gamblers hedge their bets; few of us put trust enough in fortune to risk our all upon the hazard of a single die. Acting in the spirit of these sound calculations, the jointstock company of office-seekers has gone into operation, whose object is, by shortening the terms of office, by making those who have held office practically ineligible for a second term, and establishing a course of succession by turns, to multiply the chances of success and reduce those of failure for each member. It is true, the success is not so great when it comes; but it is sure to come in time. A small certainty is obtained in place of a great possibility; and those are the safest lotteries which offer the most prizes. Besides, the calculations do not extend to the highest places in politics; to hold these requires different stuff from what office-seekers are made of. The situation is too airy, too hard for them to climb to or to keep. The storms and whirlwinds of passion which play about those elevated regions are not precisely to their taste or their capacity. Some quiet, sheltered nook, or fruitful spot, is the mark of their aim and the summit of their low ambition. And not even the fear of disturbing the security of their own places can prevent them from pursuing their object with all the means which cunning can lend to selfishness. Being naturally shortsighted, they never imagine that he who is strong enough to get, may find himself unable to keep; and for all the rest of the world, it is only

"Sport to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar."

It is not the fashion to be sparing of epithets when officeseekers are in question. On all hands, they are called a hungry, impudent, conscienceless set. We scorn them, we abuse them, we laugh at them, but we let them carry their point, and elect them. The only way we know of to have good government, is to resist and prevent bad; and if the people do not do it, there is nobody else who can. The natural tendency of power is to corruption, and the people are the only remedy. That is their business. According to the provisions of our constitutions, they have the entire revision and ultimate control of the government; and if they neglect their part, who is to supply the omission? We have no doubt that the office-seekers have as good a right to rule as any other privileged class, and that power is as respectable in their hands as in those of a more magnificent aristocracy. If the people of this country are so benumbed and powerless as to submit to their ascendency, - if these are really the steel-clad barons of this age, whom we cannot resist, and the character developed among them is the one fitted to obtain authority over us, we may expect to fall into tutelage, and we ought to know it.

We do not wish to exaggerate the extent of this influence; we are well aware that there are depths of impulse and instinctive forms in the great parties in our country, which are not to be reached by the earth-born spirit of sordid interest. But it is matter of common consent that it has usurped a control over the machinery of party and the manufacture of public opinion. It is powerful enough to make its action everywhere felt, and its voice is the first, the loudest, and the last to be heard. There is a jugglery by which it is able to persuade the people, that, to turn one person out of office simply for the sake of putting in another a course of action of which they reap the whole advantage-is taking their rightful share in the government, and such an awful apparition of sovereign power as cannot fail to frighten their executive servants into propriety. And whatever produces an impression on the public mind is already an element in the government; for even the laws and constitution are nothing more than a public understanding. Written laws are a