SECTION VI. MECHANISM AND STRATEGICS OF PARTIES. You see how delicate and of necessity how fragile is this federative mechanism, where the two elements of variety and unity keep each other constantly in check. You must maintain in these thirty-one groups, so distinct and often divided by interest, the purely moral power of cohesion; arms will be useless. Some years ago the Legislature of Pennsylvania was assailed by a troop of rioters who put the members to flight, not without danger to life; a part of the population of Philadelphia were in accord with them, and the Harrisburg militia half in their interests. Until now the national sentiment favored and cherished by Congress has prevailed; the lower house represents the Union, the Senators the individual States, while equally acting in their collective capacity. Thus a basis of fundamental unity reunites all diversities, and will continue so to do until interests too violently hostile, definitively breaking the chain, shall establish separate republics-a thing not impossible at some distant date. We have shown to what past origin this wise and complex equilibrium belongs. The same strategics long ago used by the Mother Country are still employed by the Americans; if a question interest the entire country each party struggles to get first possession of it. The democrats are generally the more active in getting the question of Oregon and Texas they surpassed their enemies. The old corruptions of English politics have not been blown away by these federal republican institutions. In 1840, General Harrison was made President by rather unorthodox means. What they called the "Log Cabin Agitation" consisted of excellent, dinners and breakfasts, cider, beer and ham, seasoned with political songs and served in log-cabins. The electoral corps in the country, is somewhat more independent, but at the same time more credulous. The Irish, who crowd from Belfast and Tipperary, to become American citizens, being very abundant in market, cost but little. Votes are often bought, and there are slang terms appropriated to this political jockeyism-pipe-laying, for example. The elector and the corrupter sit down together in a tavern, the former smoking a pipe. The other offers for it six, ten, twenty dollars. As long as it rests between the voter's lips, he is virtuous; when he lays it down, he is sold. These singular habits, inevitable corruptions, abuses, vices, caprices, wills isolated, ever wakeful, ever ready to resist the yoke, give much trouble to the heads of parties; some fraction constantly strives to detach itself, some member of the army tries to go alone. They submit only at the last extremity and on the most vital questions. Then all these boiling waves enter one bed, and roll onward with irresistible force. Wo to him who would stem it. Independence ceases, discipline begins, and with it, tyranny. In all subsidiary questions be free, do as you please, lampoon your chief, attack the President, no one will hinder you: but one that the party is in full march, fall into your rank, sustain the standard, and fight. Even then, you may be somewhat undisciplined and eccentric, but you must not desert. The Teutonic nations understand thoroughly well this mixture of liberty and discipline-old parliamentary tactics. of Great Britain it is a singular combination of disper sion and cohesion utterly incomprehensible by the Roman people. The chief of a party does not lead, but is led; they push him, and he is forced to march. The least sign of want of loyalty brands him ineffaceably, and a thousand indignant plumes and furious voices awake against him. His political life is destroyed. If, on the other hand, he be faithful to his party, so will the party be to him. "May he be hanged who would not stay by his President," said a fierce democrat to a recent traveller. 66 But you make your President greater than Louis XIV.” "Well, the President is ourselves." "Then you have all his faults, eh? Even the Mexican war ?"" "Why, we demanded the Mexican war; it is glory and power." "Nevertheless it was an arbitrary and reprehensible thing." "What of that; no party voice dared speak against a measure which pleased the people and soothed its love of aggrandisement. If any one had spoken against it, he would soon have felt the popular choler." "What did Webster and Calhoun think of it ?" "They took very good care not to tell their thoughts. They are surrounded by rivals ready to seize upon their lightest words and to destroy their influence by making them unpopular." This is the bad side of these English traditions. Each State exercises so much influence upon its citizens, that in a country of unlimited liberty originality is difficult. One or two rebel spirits like Fennimore Cooper have tried to differ in opinion from the mass, but they were put under the ban. Hence the subjugated individualities are intellectually effaced, an anti-literary position, detestable for the arts and the exercise of thought, but excellent for the great combat with nature: hence, too, the difficulty found by superior minds in attaining the highest position. The crowd of little minds, and of envious people, often agrees to elect mediocre people, and from this come presidents by compromise. Among these are mentioned the democratic Mr. Polk, and the whig, General Harrison. There are other motives for nominating the insignificant. Many a man while remaining faithful in important matters to his party, gives it in lesser points which interest perhaps his own State or province. He wounds not his party, but some section or fragment of it. He displeases so and so, and if he have much talent or activity he displeases everybody. Thus each party seems to prefer a candidate for the presidency, not the most clever man, but him who possesses most negative qualities. These are disagreeable to no one, abolitionist, slaveholder, nullifier, federalist; but remain offenceless and uncommitted amid the jarring opinions of East, West, North, and South. In a continent where free variety is so powerful, a Capital, in the European sense of the word, is as impossible as a king, The political metropolis, Washington, a desert half the year, has no importance as a city. New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Cincinnati and St. Louis, are strangely placed near the borders of their respective states, and the legislature meets in none of them. Of all the large cities of America Boston is the only one which is a political centre. The very character and tradition of each city has been preserved intact: the quiet gravity, modest dress, and moderate gayety of the Philadelphians, a certain degree of calm elegance, which sometimes approaches artificial simplicity, recall Franklin and his friends, and contrast with the headlong turbulence, out door life, balls, amusements, constant reunions, and the dress often exaggerated of New York. "Who is that personage with the yellow waistcoat, and the unequalled frill ?” asked a lady traveller. "It is a Connecticut farmer.” “What! from the land of steady habits?" "Yes, but he has been in New York." The physiognomy of Boston is no less singular-it is not astonishing that this city should play a part almost as aristocratic in the commercial life of the country. It is more English than London. To believe a Bostonian, you would suppose that English was spoken only in that city. There are still maintained customs old before the revolution; they chant the nasal hymns of Cromwell's Puritans and sit at table long after dinner. "I have seen in the streets of Boston," says a recent traveller, "the true Covenanting Calvinist and the English gentleman of Addison or Steele. Do not allow yourself to make a remark unfavorable to the country. John Bull become American is more sensitive than ever. The Bostonian has reason to be proud of his city. Culture of the intellect, severity of manners, probity and economy are honored there, and few cities of the Union possess so many distinguished men. It is to the puritan city that the honor belongs of having introduced into the manufacturing life, a regularity of custom and the purity of family manners; of having conciliated the most active industry with respect for liberty and the rights of humanity, in a word of having moralized capital. It is not by theory but by practice that the Bostonians have arrived here, following the path of Christian tradition. They have not ceased to honor capital profoundly; but they have offered a perspective and recompense to the laborer whom they employ, the rights of property and the culture of lands purchased by his economies. Land is so plenty in the United |