A neck-cloth, or cravat, was never seen about the politician's throat; and for the same reason of expediency: for these were refinements of affectation which had not then been introduced; and a man who thus compassed his neck, could no more have been elected to an office, than if he had worn the cap and bells of a Saxon jester. The shirt-bosoms of modern days were in the same category; and _starch_ was an article contraband to the law of public sentiment--insomuch that no epithet expressed more thorough contempt for a man, than the graphic word "starched." A raccoon-skin cap--or, as a piece of extravagant finery, a white-wool hat--with a pair of heavy shoes, not unfrequently without the luxury of hose--or, if with them, made of blue-woollen yarn, from the back of a sheep of the aforesaid flock--completed the element of costume. He was not very extravagantly dressed, as the reader sees; but we can say of him--what could not be as truly spoken of many men, or, indeed, of many women, of this day--that his clothing bore distinct reference to his character, and was well-adapted to his "style of beauty." In fact, everything about him, form, face, manners, dress, was in "in keeping" with his characteristics. In occupation, he was usually a farmer; for the materials of which popular tribunes are made in later times--such as lawyers, gentlemen of leisure, and pugnacious preachers--were not then to be found. The population of the country was thoroughly agricultural; and though (as I believe I have elsewhere observed) the rural people of the west were neither a cheerful nor a polished race, as a class, they possess, even yet, qualities, which, culminating in an individual, eminently fit him for the _role_ of a noisy popular leader. But a man who is merely fitted to such a position, is a very different animal to one qualified to give laws for the government of the citizen. After all our vain boasting, that public sentiment is the law of our land, there is really a very broad distinction between forming men's opinions and controlling their action. If the government had been so organized, that the pressure of popular feeling might make itself felt, directly, in the halls of legislation, our history, instead of being that of a great and advancing nation, would have been only a chronicle of factious and unstable violence. It does not follow, that one who is qualified to lead voters at the polls, or, as they say here, "on the stump," will be able to embody, in enlightened enactments, the sentiment which he contributes to form, any more than that the tanner will be able to shape a well-fitting boot from the leather he prepares. "_Suum cuique proprium dat Natura donum_."[82] A blacksmith, therefore, is not the best manufacturer of silver spoons, a lawyer the ablest writer of sermons, nor either of them necessarily the safest law-maker.