nt; but the cairn reader
of the present day cannot realize the state of things in the year
1800. We cannot conceive what a fright the world had had in the
excesses of the French Revolution, and the recent usurpation of
General Bonaparte. France had made almost every timid man in
Christendom a tory. Serious and respectable people, above forty, and
enjoying a comfortable income, felt that there was only one thing left
for a decent person to do,--to assist in preserving the _authority_ of
government. John Adams, by the constitution of his mind, was as much a
tory as John Randolph; for he too possessed imagination and talent
disproportioned to his understanding. To be a democrat it is necessary
to have a little pure intellect; since your democrat is merely a
person who can, occasionally, see things and men as they are. New
England will always be democratic enough as long as her boys learn
mental arithmetic; and Ireland will always be the haunt of tories as
long as her children are brought up upon songs, legends, and
ceremonies. To make a democratic people, it is only necessary to
accustom them to use their minds.

Nothing throws such light upon the state of things in the United
States in 1800, as the once famous collision between these two natural
tories, John Adams and John Randolph, which gave instantaneous
celebrity to the new member, and made him an idol of the Republican
party. In his maiden speech, which was in opposition to a proposed
increase of the army, he spoke disparagingly of the troops already
serving, using the words _ragamuffins_ and _mercenaries_. In this
passage of his speech, the partisan spoke, not the man. John Randolph
expressed the real feeling of his nature toward soldiers, when, a few
years later, on the same floor, he said: "If I must have a master, let
him be one with epaulets; something which I can look up to; but not a
master with a quill behind his ear." In 1800, however, it pleased him
to style the soldiers of the United States ragamuffins and
mercenaries; which induced two young officers to push, hustle, and
otherwise discommode and insult him at the theatre. Strange to relate,
this hot Virginian, usually so prompt with a challenge to mortal
combat, reported the misconduct of these officers to the President of
the United States. This eminently proper act he did in an eminently
proper manner, thanks to his transient connection with the Republican
party. Having briefly stated the case, he conc