agreeable, but who, as regards their politics, are to me the most
objectionable of all men. As regards taste they are objectionable
to me also. But that is a small thing; and as they are quite as
likely to be right as I am, I will say nothing against their taste.
But in politics it seems to me that these men have fallen into the
bitterest and perhaps into the basest of errors. Of the man who
begins his life with mean political ideas, having sucked them in
with his mother's milk, there may be some hope. The evil is at any
rate the fault of his forefathers rather than of himself. But who
can have hope of him who, having been thrown by birth and fortune
into the running river of free political activity, has allowed
himself to be drifted into the stagnant level of general political
servility? There are very many such Americans. They call
themselves republicans, and sneer at the idea of a limited
monarchy, but they declare that there is no republic so safe, so
equal for all men, so purely democratic as that now existing in
France. Under the French Empire all men are equal. There is no
aristocracy; no oligarchy; no overshadowing of the little by the
great. One superior is admitted--admitted on earth, as a superior
is also admitted in heaven. Under him everything is level, and,
provided he be not impeded, everything is free. He knows how to
rule, and the nation, allowing him the privilege of doing so, can
go along its course safely; can eat, drink, and be merry. If few
men can rise high, so also can few men fall low. Political
equality is the one thing desirable in a commonwealth, and by this
arrangement political equality is obtained. Such is the modern
creed of many an educated republican of the States.

To me it seems that such a political state is about the vilest to
which a man can descend. It amounts to a tacit abandonment of the