history, extending over the life-time of the generation now living, would be to convict it of almost every possible form of political wrong. It championed the cause of slavery, and labored for its perpetuation and its virtual extension over the whole country; and when it had nursed treason into active war against the national life, it stood by the side of. the government, like Satan at the right hand of the high-priest, to resist, and if possible to defeat, its efforts to preserve the nation's life. The existence of the nation in the form given to it by the fathers of '76 and '88, is in spite of the utmost efforts of the Democratic party during the country's greatest perils. Nor has there been any sign that time has wrought in it any change for the better. The alliterative indictment recently uttered against it by implication-very inopportunely, perhaps, because, as is often the case with the words of the "enfant terrible," it was eminently true that it is the patron of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," is undeniably just, and, as matters stand, the nation's choice is between these things and their opposites.

It is manifest, however, that the Republican party has ceased to command the confidence of a large class of its former supporters, without whose support it cannot hope to succeed, and for the want of their votes it has now suffered defeat. The rights of colored citizens in the South are no doubt systematically and grossly violated, but neither party proposed any redress; why, then, should either be preferred? The public mind is becoming sensitively alive to the abominations of the liquor traffic; but neither party has responded to the public demand for its suppression. The intelligence and conscience of the nation recognize the bad faith and the fundamental iniquity of the anti-Chinese legislation of Congress, which both parties approve; and while the currency of the country—now the best in the world—is menaced with the danger of a depreciation of one sixth in real value, with the utter derangement of the finances of the country, it is not forgotten that that peril is the joint product of both the parties. It is no doubt true that the personnel of the Republican party is better than that of the Democratic; it is, however, about equally evident that the less scrupulous and conscientious portion of that party has for a series of years had the ascendency in its counsels. Good men have become tired of voting for men whom they know to be corrupt, and of sustaining bad measures, lest by failing to do so worse men and measures might prevail. Wisely or otherwise they are practically saying that, if iniquity is to prevail, they are not solicitous to have the selection of its agents.

There never was a time in our history when the affairs of the nation called more loudly than just now for intelligent and patriotic statesmanship, but the call is practically disregarded by both parties. To say nothing respecting the opposite theories of free trade and protection, it is conceded on both sides that a readjustment of the tariff, and a reduction of taxation, are highly desirable. But high duties are demanded by the great manufacturing companies, for whose benefit the whole body of the people are compelled to make contributions in the form of unnecessarily

high prices for nearly all kinds of fabrics. Because a plethoric treasury is: 2 "bonanza" for all who live by public plunder, therefore high duties. are, for them, a necessity. The internal revenue, as the laws now stand;, is derived almost wholly from taxes on whisky and tobacco; and because the money is not needed, it is demanded that these taxes shall be reduced, and so a high tariff is called for that whisky may be free.

Our system of national highways, now owned and managed by individuals, or private and irresponsible corporations, whose resources of wealth. and power enable them to both corrupt and defy the government, and which are freely and flagrantly used for both these purposes, calls loudly for heroic treatment, to undertake which neither party seems disposed. The telegraphic system, which has become the rival of the Post-Office De-partment, is scarcely at all amenable to law, and the interests of the whole people, in what has become a general necessity, are almost entirely. without protection. The relations of labor and capital, in which are in-volved some of the highest and most delicate interests, and also the greatest perils of the nation, appear to be uncared for by our statesmen and parties; and society is left to drift onward toward manifest disasters and ruin. The educational system of the country, especially in respect to primary education, is becoming year by year less adequate to the demands made upon it by the wants of the people. Illiteracy is rapidly increasing, and the proportion of wholly uneducated citizens-voters, jurymen, and possible public officers, is growing steadily larger,-but our parties, politicians, and statesmen seem to be almost entirely oblivious to the whole affair; and while the ship of state is nearing the cataract the mariners are contending for the spoils. It has been often asserted, and with at least partial truthfulness, that the issues upon which the Republican party was founded have ceased to be living questions; and since that party has not adapted itself to the new condition of the country, and because the Democratic party has always shown itself incapable of grappling with any of the great problems of the government, the intelligent and patriotic citizens of the commonwealth find themselves without a party. But such disintegrations have occurred at other times, to be followed by new and better combinations than the defunct ones had become, because they looked only to the past, and failed to adjust themselves to the requirements of the present and the surely coming events of the future. The party that now becomes the "opposition" has before it the alternatives of readjustment and new adaptations to the demands of the times, or disintegration after the manner of its illustrious predecessor, the great Whig party. Which?

PRIVATE CHARACTER AND PUBLIC LIFE.

The contestants in the late political canvass dealt very freely with the private lives and characters of the chief candidates for the presidency. This gave to it an unpleasant aspect, from which many persons turned away with disgust; but it also involved considerations which may not be 8-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. I.

disregarded because they suggest distasteful thoughts. To refuse to recognize the vices which are known to be corrupting society indicates the decay of the moral tone, and is to sacrifice virtue through a false and superficial delicacy. Vice detected, and openly called by its right name, is robbed of half its corrupting power.

When, in June last, the convention of the Republican party nominated its candidate for the presidency, the announcement was received with marked disfavor by a not inconsiderable portion of those who had hitherto acted and voted with that party. They objected to the nomination because they held that it had been made at the behest of the worst elements of the party, and because it was believed that the candidate was himself of the same class of politicians; and that for him good and unexceptionable men had been put aside. There were also honest fears that Mr. Blaine's foreign policy, as developed while he was Secretary of State in Mr. Garfield's cabinet, might, should he be made President, lead to dangerous foreign complications. Accordingly, a partially organized body of citizens, in New York and Boston, known as "Independent Republicans," professing much regard for moral considerations in politics, declined to respond to the nomination; and when, a little later, Governor Cleveland, of New York, was nominated by the Democratic party, these men with great unanimity became his supporters, being represented and sustained by some of the principal Republican papers of this city, both secular and religious. It seemed then that the Democratic candidate would be carried into the presidency upon a tidal wave, somewhat as two years before he had been made governor of the State.

He was a young

Of the candidate himself very little was known. lawyer of Buffalo, who had been elected to the mayoralty of that city, and, it was said, had discharged the duties of his office with average fidelity, and had been nominated for the governorship by his party as a new man, and was carried into that office by an exceptionally large majority, because of a bitter factional feud in the other party. He was now brought forward for the presidency as an available candidate, rather than out of respect to any special personal fitness. It was tacitly assumed that his private character was of average acceptability; and that if he was not a great man, he would not be the first of that mental stature who had filled, if not graced, the high position for which he was named: and from such considerations not a few persons-of whom this writer was one-purposed to vote for him. So matters stood for a few weeks after the nomination, and then it began to be muttered that the Democratic candidate for the first office in the nation was a man of conspicuously and flagrantly corrupt private life and character, and the evidence elicited placed that fact beyond question. Even his own partisans conceded the alleged facts, which were of the worst kind and fearfully damaging. And now new conditions were presented, and corresponding processes brought into use in the 'contest. After ascertaining the truth of the alleged complaints, the religious papers which had indorsed him, we believe without exception, abandoned the support of the Democratic candidate; but not so the

"respectable” secular papers, which, on the contrary, seemed to redouble their zeal. Most of them persistently ignored the charges respecting Mr. Cleveland's personal manner of life, and their readers, had they had no other means of information, would not have been aware that any thing to his discredit had been at all credibly alleged against him. Some of them, however, came boldly to the rescue, and, conceding the facts, excused them as peccadilloes quite too insignificant to be taken seriously into account in a political canvass. And, strangest of all, the same ground was taken by two or three distinguished clergymen, among them a bishop and a well-known pulpit celebrity. As to the mental processes by which such a conclusion was reached we have no theory, but we indignantly repudiate the vile slander that, granting all that is alleged against Mr. Cleveland, he is probably no worse than the average of men. None but a thoroughly corrupt heart could have conceived any thing so vile. The issue was, therefore, openly and distinctly made and presented to the American people, whether or not the fact that a candidate for President of the United States was a confessed libertine-the associate of lewd women and the father of a spurious progeny-should be accounted a disqualification for that high place; and in answer an effective negative has been rendered by the men of this nation. We have, therefore, a President-elect whose character and career go to teach the young men of the country that private immorality is no bar to the highest public honors; and soon the White House at Washington, the Mecca of American " society," is to reproduce in these latter days the peculiar characteristics of some, not the least infamous, of the European courts of the last century. The warnings given in the earlier chapters of the Book of Proverbs must, in view of this verdict, be understood in a "Pickwickian " sense, and the solemn objurgation of the "Preacher," telling the young man who "walks in the ways of his heart and the sight of his eyes" that for these things there will be a reckoning, must now be set aside, at least for a life-time, or the reading changed to "For all these things men will bestow upon you the highest civic and social honors." The people of this country seem to have been given over to test by an experiment of their own choosing the truth of the divine sentence which declares that "The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest of the sons of men are exalted." Considerations of statesmanship, which seem to have been very little cared for during the course of the canvass, are now rendered comparatively insignificant in the presence of such a damaging onslaught upon the purity of private life. Should not now the Young Men's Christian Associations go into liquidation, since they cannot teach moral purity without implying a censure upon the elect of the nation, and those who elected him?

The charges made against Mr. Blaine's private life, and in respect to his domestic relations, were evidently retaliatory and vindictive, and so they were very soon lost sight of. But not so in respect to certain speculative transactions in which he, as a public functionary, was accused, not without a show of probability of having used his official position, with the advantages that it afforded him, for his own emolument. It has not, indeed,

been shown that he had dealt dishonestly or directly betrayed any interest public or private, or, indeed, done any thing that would not have been right and proper in a private citizen; but very many have deeply regretted that one charged with so high a public trust should have been found mingling in the doings of speculative traders and brokers; and with an unexceptionable alternative candidate they were inclined to refuse to aid in placing him at the head of the national government. The very large vote given to Mr. Blaine in all the Northern States, the only ones in which free elections were held, should not be accepted as an approval of these transactions, so much as a protest against his opponent.

These things suggest some rather difficult questions respecting the code of personal ethics in public life. Members of the British Parliament receive no compensation, and are expected to abstain from all moneymaking enterprises in any way connected with the government. They must therefore be gentlemen of leisure and owners of considerable estates, and of course all but the rich are practically excluded. With us the case is quite otherwise. A seat in Congress is a paying position, and many a Congressman increases his income by serving the public. But his new position largely increases his necessities, and at the same time presents opportunities for money-making of which all, except the most scrupulous, readily avail themselves. Some, indeed, live within their salaries, or draw upon their private resources, and often retire to private life poorer in property than they were when they entered it, while others begin poor and become rich by practices that have not heretofore been reckoned dishonorable. And yet there can be no doubt that such practices are demoralizing, and not unfrequently the occasion of corruption in office, and of sharp practices in business. The evil of this state of things is sufficiently manifest, but the remedy is not easily found. Probably Mr. Blaine was among the less unscrupulous half of the money-making members of Congress. He was no doubt sharp at a bargain, but fair in his dealings according to the code of morals of those among whom he was acting. And yet it is to be wished that the practices with which he has been charged, and in respect to which his friends have sought to defend his conduct, were not so common as they are known to be among those holding public offices.

But there is comfort in the assurance that the standard of morals that suffices for candidates for public honors is not that which is demanded by the great mass of the people in their domestic and social relations. It is no doubt true, though greatly to be lamented, that many a husband and father gives his vote for the political advancement of men who would not be desired in their parlors, or allowed to associate with the young people of their families. Possibly, too, the American people have not now for the first time chosen a libertine to the Presidency, though we are not persuaded that they have done so; but happily heretofore no one has been so chosen with the brand of the leper upon his forehead.