respected the holy sacrament of matrimony. But they wished for neither a France nor an England; they desired to make an America after their own hearts,--religious, just, orderly, and industrious; they believed that on the Federalist plan such a nation could be built up, and on no other; they opposed Jeffersonian politics then as they oppose Jeffersonian-Davis politics now, and they were as heartily abused then as they have been since, and as foolishly. It must be confessed that the Hartford Wits did ample injustice to their antagonists. Mr. Jefferson was certainly not an Avatar of the enemy of mankind, nor were his followers atheists, anarchists, and rogues. But in 1799 there were no shabbier Democrats than those of Connecticut. If we may judge of the old race by a few surviving specimens, we may pardon our poets, if they added contempt to theoretical disapprobation, and, in their eagerness to "Confound their politics" and "Expose their knavish tricks," allowed their feelings to exaggerate the unpleasant traits of the master and of his disciples. The Hartford men were on the losing side. Federalism expired with the election of Monroe. Its degenerate successor, Whiggism, had no principles of value, and only lagged in the rear of the Democratic advance. Statesmanship and good sense went hopelessly down before the discipline of party and the hunger for office; and with each year it became easier to catch a well-meaning, but short-sighted public in any trap baited with the usual _ad captandum_ commonplaces. We are very frequently told that "History is philosophy teaching by example,"--one of those copy-book apophthegms which people love to repeat as if they contained important truth. But the teachings of history or of philosophy never reach the ears of the multitude; they are drowned by the din of selfish rogues or of blind enthusiasts. Poor stupid humanity goes round and round like a mill-horse in a dreary ring of political follies. The cast-off sophisms and rhetorical rubbish of a past generation are patched up, scoured, and offered to the credulous present as something novel and excellent. People do not know how often the rotten stuff has been used and thrown away, and accept it readily. After a while, they discover to their cost, as their ancestors did before them, that it is good for nothing. But even if it were possible to have a grand international patent-office for political devices, where the venerable machines, so often reinvented to break down again, could be labelled worthless, and exhibited to all the world, I fear that the newest pet demagogue would persuade the voters of his district, in spite of their eyes, that he had contrived an improvement to make some one of the rickety old things work. No wonder that Dr. Franklin lost patience, when he saw how sadly reason was perverted by ignorance, selfishness, and wickedness, and wished "that mankind had never been endowed with a