character of the government and shaking the
foundations of society. In England a gradual revolution has been always
going on, and there have been several struggles even in the present
century where a popular insurrection loomed in the background and was
averted only by concession. Our institutions, on the contrary, have
undergone no change and been exposed to no danger in any fundamental
point. They were accepted by the whole people, and their stability was a
subject of national pride. There were two great parties, each of which
scented in every measure projected by the other a design to unsettle the
balance between the States and the general government, but both claimed
to be the guardians of the Constitution, and their mutual rancor was
founded mainly on jealousy. But for the existence of slavery, and the
inevitable antagonism provoked by it, there must have been a constant
decrease of interest in political questions as it became more apparent
that these could not affect the freedom and security which, coupled with
the natural advantages of the country, afforded the fullest scope and
strongest stimulant to industrial activity. The extinction of slavery
was the cutting away of an excrescence: the wound under a proper
treatment was sure to heal, and even under unwise treatment Nature has
been doing her work until only a scar remains. Painful, too, as was the
operation, its success has given the clearest proof of the health and
vigor of our system, thus increasing the tendency to political
inactivity and an over-exertion of energy in other directions. This in
itself seems not to be a matter for alarm: if the latent strength be
undiminished we can dispense with displays of mere nervous excitement.
And, in point of fact, the latent strength is, we believe, undiminished;
only, there is no general consciousness that it needs to be put forth,
still less any general agreement as to how it should be put forth.

What has happened is, that not only has the stream of political activity
been growing languid, but its channel is becoming choked. The noisome
atmosphere that exhales from it causes delicate people to avert their
nostrils, timid people to apprehend a universal malaria, and many people
of the same and other classes to assert that the sluices are not merely
defective, but constructed on a plan totally and fatally wrong. Some
bold and sagacious spirits have, however, taken the proper course in
such cases by examining the obs