The Enquirer

The Enquirer.

RICHMOND, 11th NOVEMBER.

FOR THE ENQUIRER.

"It is wise to converse with past hours,
And ask them, what report they bear?"

The old doctrine of exclusion by rotation, is again introduced upon the tapis of discussion, in reference to the next Presidential election. It has hitherto been considered a serious and alarming desideratum of our federal compact, that the time of Presidential eligibility has been left undefined; and the temper of the day, I fear, is but an ominous precursor of the evils that await the defects, and the odious doctrine of official perpetuity.

When I speak of this doctrine as hateful and calamitous, I am confident of being in unison with a considerable majority of the country; but if I speak in the same strain of Presidential continuance, I am aware that they who fashion their politics to "suit the varying hour," will erroneously assign me to a small minority.

To all thinking and impartial minds the distinction must appear too flimsy and fastidious, to leave even the shadowed vestige of a doubt. In the one instance, the opinion is impolitic and untenable, because it avowedly sanctions the perpetuity of power; in the other, it becomes popular and wise, although the identical evil exists, but works under the ambiguous form of a continuance.

The sound of a king or tyrant, would excite horror and amaze, whilst the same mind would accede to the same system of measures under a different title. How is this palpable inconsistency to be reconciled? You would take from hemlock its name, but suffer its noxious qualities to circulate under another. You will not permit the constitution to declare the President's term to be durante vita, but in the same breath decide that you will elect him term after term in die. It is a laudable motive, fellow citizens, to which I ascribe this paradox of mind; your President is worthy of immortal honors, and your gratitude, I am sure, is anxious to bestow them, but let it not associate with infatuated credulity, and thus launch at hazard the patrimony of our fathers, and the unalienable inheritance of posterity. If we recur to the history of man, which prudence and reflection enjoin us to adopt as our compass upon the portentous main of politics, we shall find that human nature is treacherous and ambitious: That man is entirely the creature of circumstances, and that those which recommend him to elevation, are washed away and forgotten by a new and successive wave, after his object is attained. If we examine the subject by the history of tyrants, we shall find, that even the ascension of Nero was attended by unwearied acclamations of joy, and that his reign was expected to be a calm unvaried course of justice and humanity. And it is true, that the initial years of his reign, were unclouded and benignant; but the possession of power soon infused its baleful influence in his bosom, and his name even now, is the object of school-boy execration. This was not alone the case with Nero, but with Domitian and Caligula and many others, the history of whose lives fully confirm the rectitude of my text: that human nature is treacherous and ambitious, and will seldom surrender power to which it has been accustomed. I may be told by the advocates of a different belief, that there are as many historical instances to the contrary, of men, who have spontaneously laid down their power; to which the names of Diocletian, Maximian, Charles V. and even Sylla may be adduced in evidence.

I may then be asked, if it is unnatural or unexampled that Mr. J. should do this, and more particularly when required by the voice of the union. This, it must be confessed, is a subject of experiment in which our inestimable rights are involved, and about which, we should be timorously cautious. In making this experiment, we should surely attend to the lessons of history and reflection. "But first of all, where is the necessity of a trial?

The idea itself is a libel upon the intellectual character of America, that we should have no other patriot capable of supplying the vacation. And if there be truth in the idea, it exhorts us to bestow by open declaration the office for life.

It is true that the confidence and affection of the people is strong and unalterably fixed upon Mr. J., and if they wish to signalize their attachment in any other mode than thanksgiving and grateful encomium, let them confer the office for life. But to this proposition I entertain no doubt, they would be violently opposed, and upon no other principle, than the treachery and ambition of nature, and from fear that he might be subject to the same frailty and perversion: That he might devise and practice schemes subversive of our happy polity, and instead of a republican course of rotation, a monarchical course of lineal descents might be established.

Goldsmith's History of Rome.

The author presumes that no one will contest this position altho' these names are recited, three of whom were under the influence of pique or madness; and Maximian was so anxious to regain his resigned dignity and power, that he got involved in traitorous intrigue, for which he was doomed to die any death he should prefer, which was that of hanging.