Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/119

This page needs to be proofread.

109

��baclly combined Avith the lei:;islative and jndi- cial: it wants the most indispensable faculties for causing obedience to the laws, and maintainins; good order in the country; and it has power and existence only by the continual exertion of an astute and seductive policy, whose object is to blind the people with flattering and false appearances, to in- trigue in elections, and to gain a preponderant party in the legislative body. It has no other effectual means of succeeding but by corruption in the elec- tions, and bribing those representatives m ho have most influence and most power in congress, with posts and places that are at its disposal. The peo- ple are acquainted with these abuses, and declaim against them. The gazettes and periodical papers throughout the Union, abound in vehement decla- mations upon this particular. The democrats and federalists carry on a war with the pen, clamorous in the extreme: each party pleads in behalf of those whom it wishes to raise to power, and abuses their antagonists; but the executive power, and the legis- lative body, pursue their unalterable course, and are either insensible to the clamours of the public/c papers, or despise them.^ They are all accustom-

  • Whether the author intended it or not, he has certain-

ly paid here a high compliment to the conscious rectitude and strength of the American government. It keeps the " even tenour of its way," in full confidence, that, however gazettes and demagogues may declaim and rail, there is a saving virtue in the people to secure the stability of the Union. T.

�� �