This book is included in the US Government: Educational, Informational & Motivational section.
Preliminary
Peril of Safety -- Which shall it be?
Napoleon the Third proclaimed, "The Empire is
Peace." The empire was war until it went down in the red sunset of
Sedan.
Melville W. Fuller, on the eve of his nomination to the Chief-Justiceship
of the United States, said, in his eulogy on Stephen A. Douglas: "The
Republic is Opportunity." He ought to have said that this extended
confederation of States was meant to be Opportunity.
In the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States,
Charles Pinckney declared, "In the United States there is but one
order." Is that true to-day? Is there not the growing aristocracy of
wealth?
In the same convention Alexander Hamilton declared that, "As long as
office is open to all men and no constitutional rank is established, it
is true republicanism." Is that true to-day? Is genius or moral merit or
political knowledge rewarded by even so slight a thing as
acknowledgement? Is it not a crime to be poor, however gifted? James
Madison in the "Federalist" wrote: "Who are to be the objects of the
popular choice? Every citizen whose merits may recommend him to the
esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of wealth or
civil profession is permitted to fetter the judgment or disappoint the
inclination of the people." Is that true to-day? Are not nominations
bought before election in the name of assessment?
Are the questions of Thomas Jefferson now asked of an aspirant to public
office: "Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the
Constitution?" The only question asked as to a presidential candidate,
or an aspirant to such candidacy, is this one: "Is he available?" Or, in
case of an applicant for appointment: "What is his influence in his city
or county or State?" Is suffrage not a farce played by demagogues? Are
not ignorant voters the puppets of opulent or crafty and ambitious
office-seekers? Does not wealth often dominate the Senate of the United
States, and intrepid mediocrity dominate often the House of
Representatives? Do not Presidents bid for second terms and manipulate
so-called "national conventions?"
Is not worse than Walpolean corruption winked at in high places
everywhere? Is not the success of party everything, the State a second
consideration? Is not monopoly supreme in many of the States of the
Union? Is the whole country not changing from an exotical human
inundation and a growing tendency to European centralism?
Instead of the splendid axiom of a late writer: "Worms to the dust;
eagles to the empyrean," is not the opposite true: Worms to the front;
vultures to the empyrean? In the gradual focalization of power in
Washington, and consequent disregard of the limitations of the
Constitution and the reserved rights of the several States, is not the
spectre of the Man on Horseback discerned in the twilight of distance?
Is not his coming ultimately certain. unless there shall be social and
political reform? In the insweeping, unrestricted tide of foreign
immigrants of monarchical habits of thought, diverse tongues, differing
religions, and unassimilating tendencies, is there not anarchic danger?
Is there not an ignorant use of the ballot by a growing African-American
population, and a terrible prospective racial collision which must end
in the extinction of one race or the other, or the ruin of both the
white and black races by hybridization? Is not the Republic Peril?
What is the Road to Safety?
The author has endeavored to reblaze the road to safety in the pages
which follow. Our fathers studied the principles of the Declaration of
Independence and the letter and spirit of the Constitution of the United
States. In the rush of commerce and trade, the selfish desire for
plutocratic millions, and the mad struggle for political power and
plunder, good government is neglected, and the great charters of freedom
relegated to the dust of libraries. We must become students and patriots
again, or the historian will chronicle the greatest suicide of the
centuries - the destruction of the last republic that promised to
federate the world.
Authors and statesmen who understand the genius and practical workings
of our institutions should make haste to correct a growing fallacy which
has for its nourishment political ignorance. The fallacy is that the
United States have outgrown the Constitution, which needs important
revision.
Although more than a century has elapsed since its ratification by the
States, the people have not grown up to the principles of the
Constitution. The minority have governed, and still govern. This is
chiefly due to the tremendous influx of new peoples who are in
everything diverse. They need education in the great school of our
fathers, who were students of the histories of all of the republics and
nations of the earth.
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