vernments, but moral
cowardice holds them in subjection. Afraid of their own shadows, each
politician hesitates to 'bell the cat.' What is more, the select
aristocrats and monarchists are the least bold in acting frankly, and in
saying openly what they think; leaving that office to be discharged, as
it ever will be, by the men who--_true_ democrats, and not canting
democrats--willing to give the people just as much control as they know
how to use, or which circumstances will allow them to use beneficially
to themselves, do not hesitate to speak with the candour and manliness
of their principles. These men call things by their right names, equally
eschewing the absurdity of believing that nature intended rulers to
descend from male to male, according to the order of primogeniture, or
the still greater nonsense of supposing it necessary to obtain the most
thrifty plants from the hotbeds of the people, that they may be
transplanted into the beds of state, reeking with the manure of the
gutters.

The governor submitted to the changes, through a love of peace, and
ceased to be anything more than a private citizen, when he had so many
claims to be first, and when, in fact, he had so long been first. No
sovereign on his throne, could write _Gratia Dei_ before his titles with
stricter conformity to truth, than Mark Woolston; but his right did not
preserve him from the ruthless plunder of the demagogue. To his
surprise, as well as to his grief, Pennock was seduced by ambition, and
he assumed the functions of the executive with quite as little visible
hesitation, as the heir apparent succeeds to his father's crown.

It would be untrue to say that Mark did not feel the change; but it is
just to add that he felt more concern for the future fate of the colony,
than he did for himself or his children. Nor, when he came to reflect on
the matter, was he so much surprised that he could be supplanted in this
way, under a system in which the sway of the majority was so much
lauded, when he did not entertain a doubt that considerably more than
half of the colony preferred the old system to the new, and that the
same proportion of the people would rather see him in the Colony House,
than to see John Pennock in his stead. But Mark--we must call him the
governor no longer--had watched the progress of events closely, and
began to comprehend them. He had learned the great and all-important
political truth, THAT THE MORE A PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO EXT