Literary Cadet And Rhode Island Statesman

JACKSON ELECTIONEERING.

Perhaps few are impressed with a proper idea of the demoralizing effects which must inevitably be produced on the community by the system of electioneering pursued by the opposition to the present Administration.— They set all principles, all reason, all common sense, at defiance, and rest all their hopes for success on broad, unsupported assertion, enthusiastic acclamation, and bitter and false denunciation. By mutilating public documents, substituting false glossing for acts. when they militate against their favorite, and exaggerating and misrepresenting what, if fairly laid before the public, would exonerate the Administration from all their alleged abuses. the public mind is misled, and many ignorantly join in undeserved plaudits, and unmerited anathemas. The ambitious, unprincipled and factious leaders are totally regardless of the means by which they may effect their object, and laugh at the facility with which the credulous and unreflecting are duped into the support of men and measures, which, if placed before them in their true light, would excite their disgust, their deepest abhorrence. It is a moral as well as a political espionage, which must result in the most disastrous consequences, and unless checked by public opinion, must eventuate in the subversion of everything we hold dear. The principle of right and wrong is the only criterion by which to estimate human actions. If a man in private life violate every rule of moral propriety, could he call on a moral community to approbate his conduct? Or if he fulfill all the moral duties, might he not ask, nay, demand the sanction of such a community?

The most depraved in society can date the origin of their career in vice from small beginnings. But the rill soon becomes an impetuous torrent, defying all restraint, and sweeping away every barrier that would impede its destructive progress. If an exception can be found, it is in the depravity of the present opposition, which seems to have sprung a monster into birth. Its origin was avowedly unprincipled and wicked, and it should never be forgotten, that before any measure of the administration, indicative of the course of policy intended to be pursued had been adopted, one of the principal champions of the combination proclaimed their hostility in language of no equivocal import. It was not "the Administration are pursuing a course adverse to the spirit of the Constitution, one which may jeopardize the liberties of the people"—