titution of its
government, requires, on the part of the people, more vigilance and
constant exertion than any other form of government. The American
Republic, above all others, demands from every citizen unceasing
vigilance and exertion, since we have deliberately dispensed with every
guard against danger or ruin except the intelligence and virtue of the
people themselves. It is founded on the basis that the people have
wisdom enough to frame their own system of government, and public spirit
enough to preserve it; that they can not be cheated out of their
liberties, and they will not submit to have them taken from them by
force. We have silently assumed the fundamental truth that, as it never
can be the interest of the majority of the people to prostrate their own
political equality and happiness, so they never can be seduced by
flattery or corruption, by the intrigues of faction or the arts of
ambition, to adopt any measures which shall subvert them. _If this
confidence in ourselves is justified_--and who among Americans does not
feel a pride in endeavoring to maintain it?--_let us never forget that
it can be justified only by a watchfulness and zeal in proportion to our
confidence_. Let us never forget that we must prove ourselves wiser,
better, and purer than any other nation ever has yet been, if we are to
count upon success. Every other republic has fallen by the discords and
treachery of its own citizens. It has been said by one of our own
departed statesmen, himself a devout admirer of popular government,
that power is perpetually stealing from the many to the few."

The institutions of a republic are endangered by the ignorance of the
masses on the one hand, and by intelligent, but unprincipled and vicious
aspirants to office and places of emolument on the other. Where these
two classes coexist to any considerable extent, the safety of the
republic is jeoparded; for they have a strong sympathy with each other,
and it is the constant policy of the latter to increase the number of
the former. They arouse their passions and stimulate their appetites,
and then lead them in a way they know not. A barrel of whisky, or even
of hard cider, with a "hurrah!" will control ten to one more of this
class of voters than will the soundest arguments of enlightened and
honorable statesmen. And yet one of these votes thus procured, when
deposited in the ballot-box, counts the same as the vote of a Washington
or a Franklin!

The