impeded measures-impeded by the personal opposition of members of the government, would not answer the end; when a party is in power, it must instate itself to the full, and rely upon the full efficacy of its policy to secure the favor of the nation, and not upon any compromises, or bribes to influential persons, who, in the end, would certainly thwart and traverse the measures of a government which they despise. But while we advocate the filling of every office that carries a weight of political influence with it, by members of the prevailing party, in order that the policy and economy of the party may be fairly and fully tried, without thwart or hindrance, we do this upon grounds of common sense and common justice, and in fulfillment of the spirit of the constitution; making no concessions to those who advocate a system of rotation in office. It is implied by the doctrine of rotation, that the office is created for the convenience and benefit of its incumbent, and not for that of the citizens at large. And because it were improper to favor one man more than another, therefore each man must at some time in his life enjoy an office. Let us suppose for a moment that of fices are in fact created for the benefit of those who hold them, in the nature of pensions and annuities. Unless they are equally distributed among all, they are converted into the most odious of all monopolies. The party who have just now lost their power, were divided into two factions, one monopolizing, the other demanding office. The latter faction is created by the opinion that there ought to be a rotation in office, and that those who have not " enjoyed" office should in their turn " enjoy" it. The opinion and the desire seem at first sight so very just and natural, and are held by some of our modern democrats in such a simple spirit, that they even declare their willingness to give the Whigs their turn; it being due to them that they take their turns with the rest. These simple-minded persons look upon offices as they do upon pensions and annuities, as benefits created for those who hold them, and they very justly conIclude that those benefits should be enjoyed in rotation; but when it is perceived that offices are not established for the benefit of their incumbents, the idea of a right to office, or a turn in office, vanishes quite away. It is then only necessary to inquire by what system of appointments the performance of official duties will be best secured; the offices being established for the public benefit, and not for the convenience of office-loving citizens. We might, therefore, dismiss the argument from this doctrine of rotation at this point, and give ourselves no further trouble about it; but as the opportunity is too good to be passed by, we cannot refrain from mentioning a few of the absurd consequences that flow from it in practice./ For, first it would happen, that if any system of rotation were established, the necessity of elections and appointments would be done away with, and each citizen would come to office in his turn, whether qualified or not. But as the number of offices is small, and that of citizens great, a vast number would lose their turns of appointments, the life of one man being an insufficient time for a complete rotation of all the citizens through every office in the commonwealth. And if, in consideration of this difficulty, it happens that a certain class or body of citizens are selected and set aside by law to hold office in rotation for their lives, they are thus constituted a class of office. If, on the other hand, some of the citizens coming to their turns should pass them over, caring only for such offices as were very lucrative, it would be necessary to exclude them entirely; for, being on an equality with the others, they have not right to be picking and choosing. The system of election is directly opposed in spirit to the system of rotation; for while clection leaves it free to the electors to choose whom they think fit, and the party in power to appoint whom they think will best accomplish the designs of their constituents; rotation, on the other hand, takes away all power from the electors, and indeed from every one else, and leaves no remedy for malversation. And should a rotated official misbehave, it is a matter of no consequence; no impeachment can be brought against him, since the office was made for him, and not for the people, who have therefore no right to complain. Such are the absurdities of rotation. It reduces govern- | ruling party constitute of themselves a ment to a machine for extortion and mo- powerful and effective organization, connopoly, and defeats the true end of elec- tributing time, and money, and influence tion, which is established in order that the to the support of their own party, it can be interests of the people may be taken care met only by a similar organization, stimuof by those who are most likely to attend lated by the hopes, as the other is stimuto them; namely, by those men who lated by the desire of retaining office. By have acquired experience in public affairs, such an organization, interest is opposed and have shown that they can hold office by equal interest, and the enemy are met with credit and benefit to the commonwith their own weapons. wealth. Nothing, in a word, can be more opposite in idea than the having an equal right to office and an equal right to vote. While the people have a right to choose such an officer as they like, no man has any right to any office not conferred by their votes; nor can any principle of rotation be established without striking down at once the right of free election, the strongest safeguard of the popular liber ties. So much, then, for the argument from rotation; it seems unnecessary to add the inference, that no man ought to be ejected from office merely because he has held it for a long time. While an officer does his duty, he is a good officer; if he never, in any instance, impedes the accomplishment of the policy of the prevailing party, either because he does not care to do so, or because his station does not give him an opportunity of doing so, it is impolitic, perhaps unjust, to eject him, for anything that can be gathered from the argument of the rotationists. The argument from party expediency, for the general ejectment of all officeholders, is probably of much greater force in the minds of most men. By this argument, every office-holder is looked upon as a canvasser, and the expectants of office, who canvass before the general election, are supposed to have a superior claim to office in regard of the service they have rendered to the party. We are told that it would be dangerous to deny the validity of such claims, because of the necessity of securing an efficient body of canvassers to excite the people previous to an election. It is certain that a great number of canvassers, perhaps a fair majority of them, are stimulated by the hopes of office; it is even said that an election can be managed in no other way than by an organization stimulated and enlivened by the hopes of office; that as the office-holders of the Under the system in use with the old administration, a system which took its rise in the Jacobin clubs, and reached its perfection under the administration of Mr. Van Buren, every office-holder, and, in short, every expectant of favor from the government, was subject to a tax for election purposes. Öffice-holders contributed freely from their means, and will always contribute in proportion to their incomes, in order to secure themselves in office. If there were not, then, organization of this character, it is supposed by many, that the very considerable expenses of elections would not be met, and that if one party employs the system, the other must of necessity do the same; that as it is very certain that the party now out of power would, if they returned to power, eject every man from office who did not hold with them, it is but fair that they should themselves be ejected from their offices. That these arguments will have the greatest weight with those persons who are most deeply engaged with party politics, that they will operate with a peculiar force upon the minds of all those who are expecting office under the new administration, may be well believed; nor will it seem possible, at first, to meet them, without venturing much farther into the region of theoretic and ethical politics than is prudent at the present juncture. If it can be proved beyond a doubt that no party can maintain itself in power for any length of time, except by the system of political proscription carried into every department of the government, it would indeed be idle to contend against it; but the necessity of such a system has not yet been demonstrated; it is by no means an unquestionable fact that those who are now in power owe their election to the exertions of those who expect office under them. 1 Among the influences which are most | cates itself to the imagination of those who operative in effecting a change of popular opinion, we find three prominent: First. The desire of the great interests of the country, of agriculture, of commerce, of mines and manufactures, and of the learned professions, to secure for themselves a government that will protect and sustain them. These interests expend money, time, and influence upon elections. Blections in England, to a great extent, are controlled by these interests. In our own country they are the great, if not the greatest, of those powers which brought immediately to bear upon opinion, on the eve of an election. are listen to him. The experience of the reform parties in France and England, and, in general, of reform parties in all parts of the world, may enable the discerning politician to assign its true value to the force of enthusiasm, as compared with that of interest in the management of elections. For our own part, we are not inclined to put confidence in the success of any movement, that turns primarily upon reform enthusiasm. The most powerful of all enthusiasms, that of superstition, is ineffectual against the continued, unseen and silent pressure of interest: a party that means to endure, must ground itself upon the physical hopes and necessities of the middle classes of men, those whose property and whose affections are engaged in permanent industry, under the protection of permanent institutions. Masses of poverty and ignorance may be roused and agitated by eloquence and sympathy: that natural sympathy which unites the extremes of imaginative speculation with brute ignorance and ardor; which brings the lowest grade of humanity into a mo Second. The interest of office, and of all those who depend upon the existing administration for their support. Previous to the establishment of universal suffrage in France, the number of office-holders and of pensionaries very nearly equalled, it is said, the entire number of national electors in the kingdom. To be an elector was to be an officeholder; and the power of the government rested, through its entire extent, upon its patronage. It maintained itself by conferring office, and could not, but by brib-mentary agreement with the highest; but ery in this kind, have existed for a day. It bribed itself in. This system, pursued by Louis Philippe and his ministers, is perhaps the most complete example that has ever been, or ever will be, of this second means by which parties are maintained in power; that it is the least reliable of all, even in its full efficacy, will not be denied by any person acquainted with the history of French politics during the reign of Louis Philippe. Third. The influence of popular ideasof schemes for the reformation of society, and of progress and revolution, in all their forms. These influences we have put last in order, although they are really of greater force than the second class named. When they are united with the two former, they acquire indeed an unnatural force. The reformer who not only seeks office, but who is able to identify himself with national interests, with the interests of commerce or of manufactures or of agriculture, or of the learned professions, is not only inspired himself with a peculiar and irresistible enthusiasm, but is able to give an air of sincerity and importance to his projects for reform, which communi these movements, though vast and terrible, are like the swellings of a shallow sea, dashing over and submerging everything that rides upon its bosom. Witness the disasters of the radical and socialist parties in Europe of late years, and in former times; or the no less eminent, though less ruinous, failures of the radical enthusiasts in England and Ireland. Witness the apparent strength, and, in times of trial, the real weakness and discord of the Abolition party in England. Opinion, taken by itself, has no binding or harmonizing quality; it is upon INTERESTS, the life of society, the bond of union and the soul of the body politic, that the skillful party leader founds his movement; enthusiasm is only an accessory to it. Let us now inquire what means will be employed by the far-sighted politician to secure the triumph of his party. His first effort will be for a period of years, before the coming on of a general election, to diffuse through all ranks and in all parts of the country a knowledge of the common interests of all. He will, if possible, convince the agriculturist that his own interests are identical with those of the merchant and manufacturer; he will discover to the learned professions the secret causes of their own decline, and show them by what great national measures their own prosperity and that of every species of industry may be secured. To the slaveholder he will impart a spirit of confidence in the Union and the Constitution; and while he will not hesitate to disclose to him the economical reasons of his losses and misfortunes, he will inspire him with a confidence in the forbearance of those whose religious and moral prejudices incline them against him; he will found all arguments upon wants, necessities and facts, and rarely or never upon magnificent hopes, or hypotheses of a better state; he will take care to let all men see that he is himself a man, and that the interests he advocates are his own interests; he will avoid, as ruinous, the reputation of a theorist, a metaphysician, or a fanatic; he will as carefully fly from the other extreme, and show in every word that he is no bigot; his enthusiasm will be sincere and ardent, but it will rarely assume the character of a partisan enthusiasm. And now, when the time has nearly arrived for the trial of the great question, and parties are coming to a distinct and final issue, he will find himself acting in harmony with the sense, the property, and the permanent wisdom of the nation. Such is the course of the skillful politician in all ages. While the imagination is occupied with these, the solid means and true causes of political success, worthy as they are of the most dignified and the most intelligent minds, and while at the same time the sudden and terrible, though transient energy of reform movements is exciting the wonder of those even who are least given to admiration; combinations of office-holders and office-seekers, founded on a handful of paltry interests and meagre hopes, without dignity, without magnanimity, in a word, without any moral value or permanent importance such combinations shrink into a contemptible insignificance. It becomes evident, it becomes certain, that they are not of that value and importance which they seem to be of. That they have a value, no man will indeed pretend to deny, but that these interested combinations are the great levers by which the million are moved, it is absurd to suppose, even for an instant. We have already pointed out the causes of the late successes of the Whigs; we have attributed them not to the efforts of an interested band of office-seekers, nor to the enthusiasm of reform movements; but solely to a conviction in the minds of those who represent the great interests of commerce, agriculture, manufactures, and all liberal pursuits, that the measures of the late administration, and of the party who elected them, were injurious to the country, and that therefore new men should be elected, who would allow the measures of the majority to have an unimpeded course. The causes of the first successes' of the party, must be relied on for its continuance in power. Should it resort to other means, and adopt the policy of its antagonists—the policy of indiscriminate proscription, its 'moral power will be lost, and it will no longer occupy the grand position which it now holds; of a party founded upon the wants and necessities of the people, and which makes the prosperity of the working classes, and not the miscalled "reward" of office-seekers, the true end and aim of its existence. 1 HON. BENJAMIN F. PORTER. A GENTLEMAN of the other party has furnished us with the following very agreeable account of Judge Porter, of Alabama, an engraving of whose portrait embellishes the present number. The characteristics of the man and politician are touched in, with so light and friendly a hand, we have preferred presenting them to our readers in extracts from the letter, just as they came. To have worked them into a formal biography, would have destroyed their agreeableness. Our correspondent writes: "I made the acquaintance of the Hon. Benjamin F. Porter in the summer of 1827, at Chester Court-house, South Carolina, and could not fail to mark the superiority of his manners, conversation, and deportment. Judge Porter was handsome, with a large and brilliant eye and jet-black hair, of slender person, and uncommonly neat and genteel in his appearance; evincing at once that he had been well educated and accustomed to the best society. The beauty of his chirography, his anxiety to acquire legal knowledge and to do justice to clients, was a general subject of observation among the professional gentlemen acquainted with him. When called upon to address the court or his fellowcitizens, there was a terseness of language, correctness of sentiment, and pertinency in his remarks, that produced an effect greatly in his favor, and furnished infallible indications of future usefulness. "In June, 1828, Judge Porter married Miss Eliza Taylor Kidd, a young lady of most respectable parentage, small in her person, very pretty, quite young, yet endowed by nature with a large fund of good sense; of domestic and retired habits, and who had acquired in her education a liberal share of useful knowledge. In the general features of her character she was a counterpart of her husband; and her correctness of judgment and strength of mind, as well as good taste, were manifested by adventuring cheerfully into this matrimonial alliance. Slight obstacles were raised, as I understood, by the parents of the young lady, perhaps arising from the youth and inexperience of the parties; but the affianced couple had made up their minds. The lady stole a march upon her friends; and the marriage took place on a June afternoon, under a tree, at a spring-a romantic spot-not far from the paternal residence, and in the presence of the setting sun and two or three select friends. Judge Porter was born in the city of Charleston, on the 16th day of September, 1808. 1808. His father, Benjamin Richardson. Porter, of Irish descent on the father's side, was a native of the Island of Bermuda. His mother, Mrs. Eliza Porterpreviously to her marriage, Miss Eliza Fickling-was descended from a Welsh family, who had migrated to Carolina at the first settlement of Charleston. Owing to paternal embarrassments, Judge Porter was deprived of the advantages of an education; a circumstance by no means to be regretted, as it led to more strenuous exertions on his part for the acquisition of knowledge, when he subsequently became sensible of its importance. Much diversity of opinion obtains as to the advantages or favorable influence of being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth,' in reference to one's future destiny. A little reflection on the subject, and an examination of facts, will satisfy us that the chances of success, or of eminence, arising from the circumstances in life of our immediate ancestry, are about equal. If they incline either way, the happy medium desired by the Hebrew prophet, Give men either poverty nor riches,' is perhaps to be coveted. The acquisition of "worldly goods' is certainly one inducement to youthful exertion and enterprise; and a desire to acquire them, in many instances, the guardian angel both of morals and reputation. But if the prize be beforehand thrust upon the young adventurer, all aspirations to future eminence are in danger of being stifled, and an apology, |