New Hampshire Statesman And State Journal

THE PATENT DEMOCRAT

The following extract from an Ohio paper, as the almanac-makers say, will answer, without material variation, for the meridian of New-Hampshire. In it, the self styled "Democracy" of this State are portrayed to the life. It is inserted for their especial benefit; and we intend to dose them with similar herbs, whenever a proper opportunity is presented. The practice adopted among these gentry, of building up a set of opinions, of the most odious character, and then imputing them to honorable men, shall not henceforth go unrewarded. In future warfare of this character they may be assured of one thing, that "there will be blows to give as well as blows to take;" and that the bans of outlawry are not to be pronounced against men as pure in political belief, as virtuous, as sincere patriots as any where exist, without retaliatory measures. But in applying the above to a set of men within our knowledge, who claim for themselves an appellation to which their actions do not entitle them, we would not be understood as aping the practice we condemn in others. In our hearts we believe the portrait a just one. The mass of the Jackson party act, it may be presumed, with honest intentions; but if they would but examine the conduct of those who claim to be their leaders, they will discover a most appalling disparity between the rotten professions they make and their practice. In the name of reason and common sense, what do these self styled people's men care about principles? Absolutely nothing. The whole subject is properly delineated in an extract published in our last from Mr Leigh of Virginia: He says such are the "people's men"—because they are the men for the people's money! We repeat—we mean to dose these people's money men to their hearts' content.

Modern democracy is not a country manufacture at all. It is a city invention. The inventors are lawyers without practice, mechanics too idle to ply their trade, loungers with no trade to ply, who being of little use to their families, and utterly averse to all production, except children, become zealots to serve the country. Men who claim public trusts, because, not being charged with private ones, they have abundance of leisure on their hands. They are the fabricators and preachers of Democracy. Most of them are the ephemera of a season, and come forth like the pond frogs of spring, but more generally about the autumnal than the vernal equinox.

Their object is to work upon the plain, hard working citizens, both in town and country, thereby to serve themselves. To effect this they deify Democracy, and then persuade the good honest folks of the land that they are this very identical Deity. The incense is often acceptable, and is lavished without stint until the ides of November are passed. Then no more is distributed for some nine or ten months.

It is true, during their season, these democracy makers are sometimes seen at house raisings and log rollings in the country. But what is their business? To shake hands and electioneer. They have their dandy coat, and cane, their watch guard and their seals, and make much of their condescension to mix with their democratic brethren, that they may successfully play the game by which a few town jockeys govern the many of the country.

Their most common juggle for the purpose is a Convention, very much like the Temple of Bel, with its "privy entrance" made "under the table," through which the managers enter to effect their own purposes. Besides this Convention juggle, with its "private entrance," the democracy-makers have another device. They declaim vociferously against all who do not join them, as aristocrats, which aristocrats they represent as "fur hat and ruffle shirt gentry," and as men "laying schemes of aggrandizement and sacrificing the country to the impulses of ambition." And this is done with fur hats on their heads and fine linen shirts on their backs, and with their hearts full of ambition to get into office, whether fit for it or not. Let any man of good plain sense and independent principles look around just now, and compare the democracy-makers with those they denounce as aristocrats, and then let them decide between our neighbor folks and us, which best understands and most correctly delineates the Democracy that is now so much mouthed by a few. Let him visit the market house and he will find as many carrying their market basket, who are denounced as aristocrats, as of the select few of democracy makers in this our goodly city.

If Democracy was what our neighbor folks represent it to be; if it did indeed "prompt the farmer and artizan to become what nature intended them, their own rulers;" if it were "the moral principle that exalts man from the degradation of an unreflecting slave, and bestows upon him the rights and attributes of a freeman," then would it be justly entitled to the regard and support of all. But this is not the character of the Democracy manufactured and preached every year when an election approaches. Far from it. The Democracy which I reprobate is that which I have described. A mean used by a few to delude the many—to sink that many to the "degradation of an unreflecting slave," binding them in shackles that exclude all exercise of judgment, in employing the most important attribute of freemen, and compelling them to the selection of men for public stations, whom, left to their own free judgment, they never would have selected.