This is quite enough; Mr Van Buren's motives are to be re-elected as president. That is very natural on his part; but how can you expect a people to improve who _never hear the truth_?
Mr Cooper observes, "Monarchs have incurred more hazards from follies of their own that have grown up under the adulation of parasites, than from the machinations of their enemies; and in a democracy, the delusion that still would elsewhere be poured into the ears of the prince, is poured into those of the people."
The same system is pursued by all those who would arrive at, or remain in place and power: and what must be the consequence? that the straight-forward, honourable, upright man is rejected by the people, while the parasite, the adulator, the demagogue, who flatters their opinions, asserts their supremacy, and yields to their arbitrary demands, is the one selected by them for place and power. Thus do they demoralise each other; and it is not until a man has, by his abject submission to their will, in contradiction to his own judgment and knowledge, proved that he is unworthy of the selection which he courts, that he is permitted to obtain it. Thus it is that the most able and conscientious men in the States are almost unanimously rejected.
M. Tocqueville says, "It is a well-authenticated fact, that at the present day the most talented men in the United States are very rarely placed at the head of affairs; and it must be acknowledged that such has been the result in proportion as democracy has outstepped all its former limits: the race of American statesmen has evidently dwindled most remarkably in the course of the last fifty years."
Indeed, no high-minded consistent man will now offer himself, and this is one cause among many why Englishmen and foreigners have not done real justice to the people of the United States. The scum is uppermost, and they do not see below it. The prudent, the enlightened, the wise, and the good, have all retired into the shade, preferring to pass a life of quiet retirement, rather than submit to the insolence and dictation of a mob.
M. Tocqueville says, "Whilst the natural propensities of democracy induce the people to reject the most distinguished citizens as its rulers, these individuals are no less apt to retire from a political career, in which it is almost impossible to retain their independence, or to advance without degrading themselves."