n between an
alteration of policy compelled by events, and an abandonment of
professed principles tainted with any suspicion of self-interest. We
hold that a Representative is a trustee for those who elected him,
--that his political apostasy only so far deserves the name of
conversion as it is a conversion of what was not his to his own use
and benefit; and we have a right to be impatient of instruction in
duty from those whom the hope of promotion could nerve to make the
irrevocable leap from a defeated party to a triumphant one, and who
can serve either side, if so they only serve themselves. It is this
kind of freedom from prejudice that has brought down our politics to
the gambling level of the stock-market; it is this kind of unlucky
success, and the readiness of the multitude to forgive and even to
applaud it, that justify the old sarcasm, _Patibulum inter et
statuam quam leve discrimen!_

It is not for inconsistencies of policy in matters of indifference
that we should blame a mart or a party, but for making questions of
honor and morals matters of indifference. Inconsistency is to be
settled, not by seeming discrepancies between the action of one day
and that of the next, but by the experience which enables us to
judge of motives and impulses. Time, which reconciles apparent
contradictions, impeaches real ones, and shows a malicious satirical
turn, in forcing men into positions where they must break their own
necks in attempting to face both ways. Nor is it for inconsistency
that we condemn the Democratic Party. There are no trade-winds for
the Ship of State, unless it be navigated by higher principles than
any the political meteorologists have yet discovered. But there have
been mysterious movements, of late, which raise a violent
presumption that our Democratic captain and officers are altering
the rig and adapting the hold of the vessel to suit the demands of a
traffic condemned by the whole civilized world. They are painting
out the old name, letter by letter, and putting "Conservative" in its
stead. They seem to fancy there is such a thing as a slave-trade-wind,
and are attempting to beat up against what they profess to believe a
local current and a gust of popular delusion. We think they are
destined to find that they are striving against the invincible drift
of Humanity and the elemental breath of God. It is an ominous
_consistency_ with which we charge the Democratic Party.

Mr. Cushing affirms, that