erested parties; whoever
accepts or bestows a public office on any grounds other than the
efficiency of service which the office-holder is to render to the
country; whoever evades his just taxes; whoever suffers bad men to be
elected and bad measures to become laws through his own negligence to
vote himself and to influence others to vote for better men and better
measures, is guilty of treason. For in these, which are the only ways
possible to him, he has sacrificed the good of his country to the
personal and private interests of himself and of his friends.

THE VICE OF EXCESS.

+True and false ambition.+--The service of the country in public office
is one of the most interesting and most honorable pursuits in which a
man can engage. Ambition to serve is always noble. Desire for the honors
and emoluments of public office, however, may crowd out the desire to
render public service. Such a substitution of selfish for patriotic
considerations, such an inversion of the proper order of interests in a
man's mind, is the vice of political ambition. The ambitious politician
seeks office, not because he seeks to promote measures which he believes
to be for the public good; not because he believes he can promote those
interests more effectively than any other available candidate: but just
because an office makes him feel big; or because he likes the excitement
of political life; or because he can make money directly or indirectly
out of it. Such political ambition is as hollow and empty an aim as can
possess the mind of man. And yet it deceives and betrays great as well
as little men. It is our old foe of sentimentality, dressed in a new
garb, and displaying itself on a new stage. It is the substitution of
one's own personal feelings, for a direct regard for the object which
makes those feelings possible. It is a very subtle vice: and the only
safeguard against it is a deep and genuine devotion to country for
country's sake.

THE PENALTY.

+A state in which laws were broken, taxes evaded, and corrupt men placed
in authority could not endure.+--With the downfall of the state would
arise the brigand, the thief, the murderer, and the reign of dishonesty,
violence, and terror.

The individual, it is true, may sin against the state and escape the
full measure of this penalty himself. In that case, however, the penalty
is distributed over the vast multitude of honest citizens, who bear the
common injury which the traitor inf