rly wherein
the foundation principles of our government differ from that of
despotisms and monarchies, and to ascertain whether our practical
life--our society--is in conformity with our own vaunted democracy or
not?

Now the principles upon which our republic was founded teach that one
person has no right to trample on the rights of another--that we can
have no aristocratic order--that he who labors with head or hand is
intrinsically more honorable than the mere idler and pleasure seeker,
however wealthy--that legally neither birth nor riches confer any
special privileges. And in all this the spirit of our American
government is in direct opposition to the spirit of monarchical
institutions. But how is it with American society, in the moulding and
directing of which our sex has so much to do?

However opposed to each other democratic and republican partisans may
feel, the titles of their parties are terms which imply principles
synonymous--and alike in harmony with the genius our government. But
examine society among these parties. Mix with the social circles of our
capitals, during the meetings of our State Legislatures or sessions of
Congress, when democratic ladies are in the ascendency: make another
visit when the ladies of republicans are leading society in the same
places--and do you not find in the practical life of both parties a lack
of the simplicity and earnestness of real republicanism and democracy?

Yes, to our shame as daughters of a republic, we must admit that we take
more pride in ostentation than in simplicity; and that our dominant
social life and culture are a mere reflection, so far as the freedom of
our government will permit them to be, of social life and culture amid
the arrogant aristocracies of Europe!

The relation of an incident which came under our observation in a
Northern city may not be considered out of place here, since it is
illustrative of the workings of our anti-democratic social system, and
how it may even be brought to swallow up practically all sense of the
obligations of patriotism.

Last winter, a sick soldier, who had been suffering in hospital for many
months, was finally discharged as incurable, found by his old widowed
mother, and brought to his relatives, in the city mentioned, to die. As
a soldier, so long as he could bear a musket--and when he was too weak
to carry arms, so long as he could carry a cup of water to the wounded
and dying on the bloody field of Cori