by side, the brightness of the one might cover and illume the darkness of the other. We would here show, not wherein we have succeeded and excelled, but wherein we have failed; that we may the better learn what to do to retrieve ourselves and to make our political equal to our moral and social condition.

It is strange that these conditions should ever be severed, and that political corruption should exist by the side of social purity; but that is one of the anomalies of our present social and political life, arising, we are inclined to believe, from causes accidental and removable, and not from an inherent and ineradicable vice.

When we speak of our political condition, we have to distinguish between that which is theoretical and that which is practical. In theory, our political constitution is irreproachable: it supposes a government of all, for the benefit of all; or, as the politicians put it, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; but when this theory is reduced to practice, or rather, we should say, as it has been so reduced, the results are bad-almost as bad, we are tempted to say, as the promise was good.

There are few truths so much overlooked, or, if not overlooked, so soon forgotten, as that the excellence of a government depends more upon its administration than upon its constitution. The government of Trajan and the Antonines, faulty as was its constitution, gave to the Roman Empire peace, prosperity, and glory. The England of Elizabeth was as happy as the England of Victoria, and the history of China is a standing proof that a people may have wealth and pleasure under a mild though absolute despotism.

How is it, then, with us? Let us take to heart a few facts. We see a Federal Union which, being free from debt in 1836, now owes a debt of more than two thousand millions; which keeps in its service thirty thousand soldiers and a hundred thousand civil officers, and which pays for these hundred and thirty thousand servants more than twice as much as any European country pays for the like number. We see thirty-nine States owing an aggregate of three hundred and eighty-two millions, and of which eight pay neither principal nor interest;

we see counties, cities, and townships overwhelmed with debt; and all the while these various governments-Federal, State, and municipal-take from our people in taxes more than any government of Christendom takes from its people. We see offices which it is the function of the President to fill, and which it is his plain duty to fill with the truest and best, farmed out to Senators and Representatives in Congress. We see offices claimed and bestowed not for merit, but for party work, and as a natural consequence we see the public service inefficient and disordered. We see venal Legislatures and executive officers receiving gifts. We see the most depraved and least responsible newspaper press in all the world. We see a customs tariff which taxes 502 imported articles, and 972 different grades of these articles, some of them to the extent of 100 per cent. of their value, while the tariff of England taxes only 17, and the tariff of Germany 152, arranged in 37 classes.

We see depreciated paper money forced upon creditors who contracted for coin, and swaying prices back and forth like the swing of a weaver's shuttle. We see a commerce which once covered the seas now so diminished that in this present year the tonnage of our sea-going steamers is 289,000, while that of England is 3,332,000. Fifteen years ago we were advancing with the stride of a giant to the dominion of the seas; to-day the trident is in other hands.

And what an opportunity have we lost-for the time at least, and perhaps for ever! Behold the land and the coasts thereof: how its plains heave with fertility, and its borders lie in the midst of the seas! From the easternmost cape of Maine to the southernmost of Florida, and thence to the great river of Texas, and from the Gulf of California to Vancouver's Island, with its wondrous network of strait and inlet, what harbors lie open for lading and shelter, and what rivers to bear the products of the land to the entry of the sea!

And what is this prize that we have thus thrown away? What is it to have the dominion of the seas? It is to girdle the earth with your flag, the pledge of your protection and the symbol of your power; to bear in peace and war the primacy

of the world, "the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power"; to be able to send forth at will

"The armaments that thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals";

and, better yet, to send the ships of peace over all the world, to bring men and riches from every sea-watered shore. In the eye of law and of reason a ship is part and parcel of the territory of its nation. Every ship is therefore movable territory, and it may be a movable fortress. That nation which has the dominion of the seas can thus push its territorial domain and its fortresses over not only the three fifths of the earth's surface that are covered with water, but over all the other two fifths that can be reached by sea, to bear its speech, its arts, and its civilization into every zone and beneath every constellation of the sky. It is thus that the little island, our mother, fifty degrees north of the equator, with a length of scarce ten degrees and a breadth of six, has made the language of her people the language of a third part of the earth; has heaped up riches beyond all that is recounted in romance or song, and has made herself teacher and lawgiver in regions vast and fertile of which neither Phoenician nor Roman ever dreamed.

Behold an armament go forth upon the sea: it is like an army on the march, without the impediments that beset armies ; it finds its way by the sun and by the stars; it stops not at night to set up its camp and surround itself with intrenchments; it builds no bridges across rivers, or roads through mountain-passes, but moves on wherever its keels can float and winds can waft them; coursing along every continent, circumnavigating every island, looking into every harbor, and making descents upon any shore whenever and wherever it will. Or, if you like not the show of war, behold a fleet of merchantships spreading their white wings and flying with the wind, bearing the harvests of one part of the earth to feed the inhabitants of another, or bringing back equivalents in fabrics for household comfort and all the luxuries "of commerce born."

What else do we see of the fruits of misgovernment, as if the picture were not dark enough already? We see Legislatures, State and Federal, granting monopolies to corporations and individuals, making gifts of the public lands, and bestowing subsidies from the public Treasury; we see the plunder of local communities by what is called local taxation, and we see demagogues clamoring for largesses under pretense, perhaps, of equalizing bounties, or other equally dishonest pretenses.

Then we see the open and flagrant breaches of trust in those who are clothed with the administration of the public property, as, for example, the frauds upon the city of New York perpetrated in 1870, the plunder of Southern States by imposed governments, and the free gifts to private corporations of rights over streets and highways which were built at the public cost.

The facts here recited prove beyond question that the corruption of our politics, so often asserted, is unfortunately true. Having now answered the first two questions, we will seek an answer to the third, What can we do for a change? The corruption is an effect of a cause behind it. What is this cause?

Men are intent on making money; that is for nine tenths of them the chief object of life. They who have different tastes and other objects; whether they seek power for the sake of power and the gratification which the possession of it gives; or fame for its sweet incense wafted to them living, and to be breathed upon their names hereafter; or science, searching for truth through earth and heaven; or art, blending the beautiful with the true; or pleasure, with its voluptuous charm, falsely claiming to be the supreme good; they are all insignificant in number compared with the great army which is pressing for ever toward the gates of Mammon.

Now, if it be once assumed that government is, or may be, converted into a machine for the making of money, and that the majority, who control it for the time being, may use it for that purpose, then there springs up as from the ground a host of hungry adventurers, office-seekers, and public plunderers, bent on using the power or patronage of the Government for

the enrichment of themselves. This is accomplished in various ways, sometimes by getting offices, or, if there be none already made, creating them for the occasion, sometimes by getting appropriations from the public lands or the public chest, or by procuring tariffs here and charters of corporations there.

Those classes of the people who are already engaged in profitable pursuits, being intent on their own methods of employment, concern themselves little with the ways of the politicians, hardly thinking, so long as they are prosperous themselves, how much their prosperity in the end may be lessened by political devices. That these are the fruits of wild notions prevalent about government and party we will endeavor to show. It is not strange that men should seek to make money. "The love of money is the root of all evil," says Holy Writ. What is strange about the matter is, that, in a country where it is the province of all to fashion and administer the government as they please, the machinery devised for the common benefit should be perverted, and so soon perverted, to the benefit of a portion of the people.

Here lies the root of the evil: the perversion of the power and patronage of the Government from public to private ends. And this is possible, and in fact happens, through a misapprehension by the people of the functions of government and the duties of its servants. What are the functions of government, according to the American theory? They are to protect each person in his individual rights, and to construct those common works, such as roads, bridges, canals, and aqueducts, which are for all, and in the construction of which all might be justly required to assist. For the performance of these functions certain agents are required, for whose appointment the laws must provide, and the necessities of the service constitute the warrant and the limit for the creation of offices. What, then, are the duties of the officers? They are to perform the services required by the laws, and to do nothing else which can interfere with that performance.

How grievously these functions and duties must be misapprehended by the people! We say must be, for there is no other way of accounting for the present condition of affairs.