The Litchfield County Post

measures which they now support and approve. Candid men are willing to look upon political aberrations as they do upon moral. The man who has once done wrong, but who now, and for many years past, has walked uprightly, is not, by men acquainted with the frailties of human nature, censured and condemned. He who is at all acquainted with the political history of our country, and with the various questions which have agitated and distracted our national councils, must be convinced that if political repentance be necessary for one party, or class of men, it is also equally necessary for the other,—that if individuals of one political name are to be censured for an undue regard to party lines,—for a strenuous adhesion to party principles to the detriment of the country, individuals of the other political name are not free from the same charge,—they also were actuated by an equally strong prejudice for the name by which they were called. Although these party names are not entirely forgotten, or discarded, yet when they are applied, it is in the most unmeaning manner, and without any regard to the character which should be attached to them. Men who were foremost in the democratic ranks, when measures were contended for, are now accused of federalism, while others, whose every act was strongly marked with federalism, have recently been embraced as democrats, and that too without any other evidence of political recantation, than a violent zeal for names. Whatever may be said against political amalgamation, we have it in the strongest sense of the term. The old lines of distinction are so completely broken down, that it appears almost impossible to know by what political name a man should be called. His acts will not speak for him; for a support of the measures which in one place entitle him to the name of republican, draw upon him from another quarter the charge of federalism. Men are called republican this year, and without the shadow of a change in their principles are next year called federal; and so contrariwise. This is confirmation strong, that party names, as known 30 years ago, have lost all their meaning; that they are a worthless appendage to the political nomenclature, and that they will shortly be swallowed up by the new names which will be assumed by the Adams and Jackson partizans.