The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
After this struggle was over, the Federalists, some from conviction and
some from disgust at being beaten, gave up the country as lost. Worthy
New-Englanders, like Cabot, Fisher Ames, and Wolcott, had no longer
hope. They sank into the position of mere grumblers, with one leading
principle,--admiration of England, and a willingness to submit to any
insults which England in her haughtiness might please to inflict. "We
are sure," says the "Boston Democrat," "that George III. would find more
desperately devoted subjects in New England than in any part of his
dominions." The Democrats, of course, clung to their motto, "Whatever
is in France is right," and even accepted the arbitrary measures of
Bonaparte at home as a mere change of system, and abroad as forced upon
him by British pirates. It is curious to read the high Federalist papers
in the first days of their sorrow. In their contradictory fault-finding
sulkiness, they give some color of truth to Mr. Jefferson's accusation,
that the Federal leaders were seeking to establish a monarchy,--a charge
well known to be unfounded, as Washington said at the time. "What is the
use of celebrating the Fourth of July?" they asked. "Freedom is a stale,
narcotic topic. The Declaration of Independence a useless, if not an
odious libel upon a friendly nation connected with us by the silken band
of amity." Fenno, in his paper, said the Declaration was "a placard
of rebellion, a feeble production, in which the spirit of rebellion
prevailed over the love of order." Dennie, in the "Portfolio,"
anticipating Mr. Choate, called it "an incoherent accumulation of
indigestible and impracticable political dogmas, dangerous to the
peace of the world, and seditious in its local tendency, and, as a
composition, equally at variance with the laws of construction and the
laws of regular government." The Federalist opinion of the principles
of the Administration party was avowed with equal frankness in their
papers. "A democracy is the most absurd constitution, productive of
anarchy and mischief, which must always happen when the government of a
nation depends upon the caprice of the ignorant, harebrained vulgar. All
the miseries of men for a long series of years grew out of that infamous
mode of polity, a democracy; which is to be reckoned to be only the
corruption and degeneracy of a republic, and not to be ranked among the
legitimate forms of government. If it be not a legitimate government, we
owe it no allegiance. He is a blind man who does not see this truth; he
is a base man who will not assert it. Democratic power is tyranny, in
the principle, the beginning, the progress, and the end. It is on its
trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy."
These and other foolish excerpts were kept before their readers by the
"Aurora" and "Boston Chronicle," leading Democratic organs, and
served to sweeten their triumph and to seal the fate of the unlucky
Federalists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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