Richmond Enquirer

RICHMOND, SEPT. 29.

FOR THE ENQUIRER.

A NEW STORY.

The following extracts of "The History of the American Republic," from vol. 4, p. 249, will exhibit, of course, a disjointed & unfinished appearance; as they have been torn from the context, without any preparatory alteration, for separate publication. The publisher indeed, did not feel himself at liberty to mutilate, by any alteration whatever, the MS that has fallen into his hands; which seems to have been the work of a distant period, and of a departed author.

Thus terminated, in disgrace, the political life of the younger Adams; the second of his family who attained to the first honors of the Republic. The American people are apt, very justly, to consider the rise of this man to power, the most extraordinary incident recorded in their annals. The restoration of a deposed family and a vanquished party, in the person of a man of the greatest abilities, is, in general, a task hard to be accomplished, even with the aid of military force, and at the price of domestic blood; but the peaceful and voluntary elevation of an inferior man, under such circumstances, to the highest station in the gift of mankind, by the people themselves, is an occurrence to fill a new page in the history of the world, and to furnish a new theme for philosophical speculation. The path of John Quincy Adams to power was not the splendid career of a conqueror, distinguished by the desolation of his country. In giving, then, the explanation of an event, which brings down to the level of every day, commonplace occurrences, the wonders of history, we have a different and more difficult task to perform, than to dip our pen in blood, and repeat the hacknied narrative of military strife. It was, indeed, one of those marvelous events, which checks the pen of the historian in its early career, & demands, in order to be comprehended or believed, a deep & elaborate enquiry into the principles of human conduct; which draws down, involuntarily, the mind, as well of the reader as of the writer, from the smooth surface of the story, to seek for the unobvious causes of such astonishing effects; which, in a word, without a very ample explanation, the dull cannot easily comprehend, and the enlightened will not readily believe.

A history, which is merely a naked narrative of facts, possesses no greater utility than a work of imagination. Unless it lay open the connecting links between the events which it relates; their reciprocal dependence; their consequences and their causes; it will exhibit, to the intelligent reader, the absurd appearance which a deaf man discovers in the spectacle of dancing--who sees the movements, but cannot hear the music, which alone confers upon them a rationality and a beauty.

We hope, therefore, that the philosophical reader will not consider some general reflections, in this place, as altogether useless or inappropriate.

The vulgar and the credulous of mankind have always been too apt to attribute to those who have been successfully engaged in the conduct of political affairs, a commanding superiority over their fellow men. There is a very general tendency in men's minds to ascribe to the positive agency of the persons who happen, for the time, to be at the head of affairs, the prosperity and renown, or the adversity and dishonor of the nation. Whilst commerce flourishes, agriculture prospers, individuals acquire wealth, and the nation acquires glory, her rulers are esteemed, of course, entitled to the applause and the gratitude of the people: and when that state of things is reversed, they are held up as fit objects of execration or contempt. Among the many unfounded notions that have been prevalent in the world, as maxims never to be disputed, we believe that mankind have assented to no opinion so utterly erroneous as this--to so pervading and pernicious a delusion.

When political things are stripped of the mysterious veil in which cunning or ignorance has invested them, it becomes obvious, that men are seldom indebted to their rulers for the good they enjoy; but for the evil they suffer, almost always.--Sometimes, indeed, calamities befall communities which human wisdom could hardly have foreseen, and could not possibly have prevented. They, however, are like the earthquakes and hurricanes that disfigure and desolate the face of the earth: we know not when or whence they come, nor would it advantage us to know. All governments are contrivances, productive themselves of many evils, to prevent the greater ones incident to human society. The interposition of the strong arm of government, is, in every case, an abridgment of natural liberty, and therefore a positive evil.--That which interferes the least, in the affairs of men, is best in its administration; and that which has the least capacity to interfere, is best in its constitution. The ruling power of a state can, therefore, be only negatively good--by abstaining from unnecessary interposition; but may be positively bad--by every interference not demanded by the public exigencies. Men are the best managers of their own concerns; and the sole utility of government, is the security which it affords to every one, in the pursuit of his own happiness, according to his own discretion. Every member of society, in the successful conduct of his own affairs, contributes directly to the prosperous administration of the state: and the natural and necessary condition of a well-constituted government, is a state of prosperity. National prosperity is the creature of individual happiness, of the means of procuring which, every one is his own best judge; and individual happiness is, in no sort, the consequence of national prosperity. Far different, however, were the notions which prevailed in the period of which we write. Government was considered a mysterious and complicated establishment, which created the happiness of the people; and the men who happened to be in power, during a period of public prosperity, were celebrated for their abilities and virtues, and reverenced as the benefactors of mankind.

The arcana imperii were so exaggerated in the general estimation, that they were far beyond the reach of ordinary men; and none were considered equal to the attainment, who had not enriched the greatest abilities with the experience of many years--who had not reaped "the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration."

At this distance of time, we must attribute in a great degree, the success of this man to the prevalence of these delusions. "In that age, the man who would have avowed and applied to politics the plain principles that the affairs of the State are but the affairs of the men who compose it--that common sense in one thing is common sense in every thing--and that the great secret in politics is that there is no secret--would have been discredited as an utter fool, or distrusted as a downright knave. The man would have been denounced by the disciples of John Q. Adams as guilty of a species of blasphemy, who might have presumed to declare that skill in their darling diplomacy consisted only of the application of that same common sense, which is productive of salutary results in common concerns, to the more important, but perhaps more simple and comprehensible concerns of a State. They would have been shocked at the impious disclosure; for, having been indebted to ignorance and connivance upon this head for the acquisition of their power and reputation, they knew full well that they must have fallen before the blasphemous development of that fatal principle. The test of that principle they know that their leader never could abide. Common sense was a vulgar and hacknied qualification which they did not pretend to attribute to him. His genius was of a sublime, mysterious, and incomprehensible order, which qualified him for the sublime, mysterious, and incomprehensible business of politics. The man who could not give a toast at a dinner party, return his thanks for a compliment, ride upon his horse, put on his clothes, or behave himself in any ordinary situation, like a man of ordinary sense, was willingly believed in that credulous age, to be possessed of the best and brightest qualities that elevate and adorn the human character. Unfit for little things, he was deemed the most fit man in the country for the very greatest."