Principles and Issues of the American Struggle [pp. 410-432]

THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE.
the rank or having received the education of a gentleman who
was elevated to the Presidency-had assumed office, the United
States began to present many of the worst features of European
life. As population increased, as men gathered in large cities, as
the large cities gave shelter to paupers, thieves, and ruffians, and
as the paupers, thieves, and ruffians, standing upon their manhood, claimed and were allowed the right to vote for the election
of members of the Legislature and every officer of the State, universal suffrage became but another name for universal bribery
and self-seeking. Before Jackson's time the servants of the State
in the Customhouse, the Post Office, and other departments, had
been appointed for life, or during good behavior. That ultrademagogue unblushingly declared that "the spoils," or the good
places in the gift of the Government, belong to the victors-i. e.,
to the party which elected the President-and that consequently
each new President was bound, in the interests of his party, to
dismiss all the officials appointed by his predecessor. Since his
time the unwise principle has been rigidly enforced, with the
natural result that honesty in a public functionary, great or small,
has been the exception, and not the rule, in the local and Federal Government; and that an organized system, under the manipulation of "wire-pullers," as they are called, has been established by the "ins" and the "outs," with no other object than the
partition of the "spoils" aforesaid -such " spoils" extending to
every place in the gift either of the Federal, the State, or the
municipal governments of the Union. After the first battle of
Bull Run, when the Federal troops rushed from the field in senseless panic, an American satirist declared that the rout was no
rout, that the Confederates had gained no victory, and that the
immense "skedaddle" had beer solely caused by a report, which
had spread like wildfire through the Federal legions, that there
were several vacant appointments to be filled in the New York
Customhouse, and that officers and privates had consequently
rushed to Washington to secure the first chance!
But other causes than this universal lust for office, destructive
as it has proved, and much earlier in their manifestations, were
at work in the American Republic to change its character, obstruct its healthful action, and sow the seeds of revolution and
war. In the first place, the Americans, from the days of Washington to those of Jefferson Davis, never truly understood what
they meant by "union." There were always two parties, who
interpreted the compact differently. While banded together
under one general, to wrest from the unwilling Crown of Great
Britain their liberty and independence, the thirteen colonies perfectly well knew what they were about, and for what purpose
they had united. When, by the aid of the fleets and armies of
France, without which they might possibly have never succeeded
in their object, they had severed the connection with the mother
country, and become thirteen States instead of thirteen Colonies,
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