an conceit has recently
tolerated.

As a matter of course, elections followed the adoption of the new
constitution. Pennock was chosen governor for two years; the new lawyer
was made judge, the editor, secretary of state and treasurer; and other
similar changes were effected. All the Woolston connection were
completely laid on the shelf. This was not done so much by the electors,
with whom they were still popular, as by means of the nominating
committees. These nominating committees were expedients devised to place
the power in the hands of a few, in a government of the many. The rule
of the majority is so very sacred a thing that it is found necessary to
regulate it by legerdemain. No good republican ever disputes the
principle, while no sagacious one ever submits to it. There are various
modes, however, of defeating all 'sacred principles,' and this
particular 'sacred principle' among the rest. The simplest is that of
caucus nominations. The process is a singular illustration of the theory
of a majority-government. Primary meetings are called, at which no one
is ever present, but the wire-pullers and their puppets. Here very
fierce conflicts occur between the wire-pullers themselves, and these
are frequently decided by votes as close as majorities of one, or two.
Making the whole calculation, it follows that nominations are usually
made by about a tenth, or even a twentieth of the body of the electors;
and this, too, on the supposition that they who vote actually have
opinions of their own, as usually they have not, merely wagging their
tongues as the wires are pulled. Now, these nominations are conclusive,
when made by the ruling party, since there are no concerted means of
opposing them. A man must have a flagrantly bad character not to succeed
under a regular nomination, or he must be too honest for the body of the
electors; one fault being quite as likely to defeat him as the other.

In this way was a great revolution effected in the colony of the crater.
At one time, the governor thought of knocking the whole thing in the
head, by the strong arm; as he might have done, and would have been
perfectly justified in doing. The Kannakas were now at his command, and,
in truth, a majority of the electors were with him; but political
jugglery held them in duress. A majority of the electors of the state of
New York are, at this moment, opposed to universal suffrage, especially
as it is exercised in the town and village go