YOL. III. 



SPRINGFIELD, APRIL, 1858. 



NO. 4. 



•rf*iip 



THE 



1% 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY 



BaiHiaclie <fe Baker, 



Journal Bnildinss, - - Springfield, Illinois. 



4«* 



S. FRANCIS, Editor. 



.•» 



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For the Far mar. 



PATRIOTISM. 



Nothing can be of more import.ince than 

 patriotism, love of country. We intend to 

 trather from the current sentiment of the 

 day a few ideas on this subject. That there 

 is less patriotism now iu the Republic than 

 at any former time, is felt to be too much the 

 fact by all of us. "With the great body of 

 the people it seems less needed. Our great- 

 ness and the power of our form of govern- 

 ment is to them a sufficient guarantee of our 

 safety, sufficient to absolve us from any indi- 

 vidual responsibility, as to the opinions we 

 hold, the vote we give, the tone of character 

 we exercise on the political aspects that are 

 ever before us. We do not consider that it 

 is by slow degrees that the integrity of a na 

 tioQ is undermined, that an evil step once 

 taken the retracement is almost impossible. A 

 precedent once established it becomes a 

 standard of political action ever afterwards, 

 and thus downward we fall until a Marius 

 and Scylla finishes the Republic, inaugurates 

 a Caesar or a Louis Napoleon to take care 

 of us. 



That the youth of our country need an 

 education to fit them for their civil duties, is 

 the opinion of a popular lecturer lately among 

 us. That there are great principles, un- 

 changing and eternal, that lie at the founda- 

 tion of all free governments is well known. 



That there is a right and a wrong side onj that Alcibiades, the nephew, thought first of 

 most all questions, in questions involving ! himself, and then of his countrj^; but that 



morals much right and much wrong, and he 



who assumes the functions of a citizen should 



be prepared to act understandingly on the 



measures that afiect so much the welfare of 



public interests, and fling back into their 



teeth the wiles and sophistries of selfish and 



designing leaders. We are a country, after 



all, governed by a few men instead of by the 



many; — we leave to caucuses and cliques that 



which we should determine upon ourselves. 



We are an Oligarchy instead of a Republic. 



Devotion to party is sure to follow ignorance, 



and when carried to excess, pressed at the 



expense of individual opinion and conviction, 



as exhibited in this country, is fatal to liber- 

 ty. That there is a monstrous power of re- 

 form and progress in our midst, — that we 



started well in the race as a nation, had no 



antecedents than those which breathed of 



liberty and law, is much to our advantage; 



but it bodes no good to us ever to be on the 



verge of some catastrophe; and th^re is no 



use in it, if we do but understand tb.Mt liber- 

 ty does not mean lawlessness, t hot national 



comity does not mean aggrc--i'.Mi, that we 

 cannot alwaj's spread our instirut'i'n^ with 

 advantage, that fraud, bribery. ;tu'j pecula- 

 tion should diggrace the pn'^iic .fcpder, 

 should open him t^' i-i-; " ■ -1 uld 

 hang him as high as 1 .u ?> V. -i u.e a 

 christian people, and yet do not fc^l ihat the 

 obligations of our religion require of us to 

 subject public as well as private matters to a 

 stem ordeal This may not bs done by the 

 pulpit, for our peculiarities of condition, cur 

 manners of life, our birth-right, heritages, 

 and sympathies are so different, but ws would 

 have the precepts and teachings of the Gos- 

 pel so applied to our individual character and 

 conduct as to lead us aright in all the rela- 

 tions of life, whether they be of slaveholding 

 or non-slaveholding, of monarchical or demo- 

 cratic type. 



Our lecturer, above alluded to, said that Pe- 

 ricles, the great Athenian statesman, thought 

 first of his country, and then of himselfj 



our politicians think first of themselves, and 

 then, of nothing. There is a saying, *^dulce 

 et decorum est mori pro patrie" "sweet and 

 fitting is it to die for one's country," but 

 these men would not like Regulus return 

 to Carthage to be immolated for their own 

 and their country's honor, but would prefer 

 to stay at home and look out for themselves, 

 thus showing that repuMicanism has gained 

 nothing, has lost ground in the lapse of 

 twenty-two hundred years. Aristides met 

 the clown who desired his expulsion from 

 Athens, "Why what harm has he done thee," 

 said Aristides. "I do not know him, but I 

 hate to hear him called the *Just,' " was the-^^ 

 reply, and added, "do thou write his nam^> 

 on this shell," the ballot of that day, TrMch., 

 was done, and Aristides, as it afterwards' • 

 proved, went into banishment. An anecdote 

 illustrative of so niuch truthfulness, delicacy 

 of sentiment and d >iuterestedness, would not 

 be understood in thrse days, would not be 

 the way our politicians would get votes, and 

 yet this man returned to Athens in triumph, 

 and may bo considered second to no other 

 public character of antiquity. 



Men who are too idle to do anything else 

 in this country, turn politicians. The study 

 of politics \is& been suggested as necessary 

 in high quarters, but that public men should 

 get their training, not from the great stand- 

 ard authors and lights who have shone 

 through history, but from saloons and secret 

 conclaves, and addressed to the lowest in- 

 stincts, crouching into the dust before place 

 and power and 3Iammon, is what this coun- 

 try alone of all republics has ever exhibited 

 as the general and almost universal tactics of 

 public life. We do not select men for their 

 high qualities, for their success in any of the 

 business pursuits in which they may have 

 been engaged, which generally shows com- 

 pass of mind and adminx.strative ability, but 

 go to the corners of the streets and get the able 

 though characterless demagogue, who there 

 stands, and make him the High Priest of our 



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