If dexterous playing could have availed,
Douglas would have carried off the stakes, for he had an audacious and
a mathematical mind; while the winning man in 1856 was a heavy player,
devoid of skill, whose decisive advantage was that he had been out of
the game for four years. Mr. Seward, too, was within an ace of
winning, when an old quarrel between two New York editors swept his
cards from the table.
No: the President of the United States is not prime minister, but
chief magistrate, and he is subject to that law of nature which places
at the head of regular governments more or less respectable Nobodies.
In Europe this law of nature works through the hereditary principle,
and in America through universal suffrage. In all probability, we
shall usually elect a person of the non-committal species,--one who
will have lived fifty or sixty years in the world without having
formed an offensive conviction or uttered a striking word,--one who
will have conducted his life as those popular periodicals are
conducted, in which there are "no allusions to politics or religion."
And may not this be part of the exquisite economy of nature, which
ever strives to get into each place the smallest man that can fill it?
How miserably out of place would be a man of active, originating,
disinterested spirit, at the head of a strictly limited,
constitutional government, such as ours is in time of peace, in which
the best President is he who does the least? Imagine a live man thrust
out over the bows of a ship, and compelled to stand as figure-head,
lashed by the waves and winds during a four years' voyage, and
expected to be pleased with his situation because he is gilt!
Daniel Webster so passionately desired the place, that he could never
see how far he was from the possibility of getting it.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207