All are now relegated to the background of “history,” to be studied in the cold _chiaro-oscuro_ of the past. And the men who led the forces marshaled against each other in those great conflicts.—Ah, “there were giants in those days!” Yes, but to their contemporaries they were merely politicians, too often opprobriously dubbed “political tricksters,” or even “traitors to their country.” What a lot of truth there is in the late Thomas B. Reed’s cynicism: “A statesman is a dead politician.” The lust for power is one of the deepest instincts of the human mind. Civilization has not quenched it, but has merely directed it into new channels. Instead of the savage chieftain who once impressed his will on his fellow-tribesmen by tomahawk or flint-tipped arrow-head, or by terrifying shamanism, we have the statesman—“politician,” if you will—exercising his mastery by all the subtle arts which a keen intellect and a profound knowledge of men and the influences to which they are severally and collectively subject, can devise. Here is a splendid field for the orator, to persuade by his burning eloquence; for the leader, to show his mastery over men; for the partisan, to cajole with the promise of sordid spoil, or to threaten the recreant with loss of influence. There is a glorious zest in this pursuit of power, in this forging to the front as a leader of men. Admirable ambition, if inspired by worthy motives. Fascinating, most attractive, to every virile man. What wonder, if in this eager thirst for eminence among his fellows, the ardent leader becomes oblivious at times to the relative rights of meum and tuum? Success is his aim. He _must_ win. The future of his party, the welfare of his country, demands it. No time to palter over finical questions of what is proper, of what is right. “The end justifies the means.” Ah, facilis est descensus Averni, indeed. All this by way of preliminary to a few gleanings from some old records of New Jersey, illustrating “past politics” principally in the days of that erstwhile Royal Province, under that unique Chief Executive, Lord Cornbury, who was foisted on the people by his amiable cousin, Queen Anne, doubtless glad enough of the chance to banish him by an ocean’s broad expanse from her Court. For a score of years New Jersey had been divided into two Provinces—East Jersey, largely controlled by the Scotch proprietors and their settlers; and West Jersey, dominated by the outwardly meek but inwardly determined Quakers. When the two Provinces were reunited into one—New Jersey—the profligate courtier, the ruffling gallant, the soldier of doubtful reputation, Lord Cornbury, of all men was chosen as the solvent to blend these and all the other antagonistic elements in the Province into one harmonious whole.