Page images
PDF
EPUB

around which all the corruption of office seekers is centered, and produces aristocratical dictation and favoritism, and is used too often for base and selfish purposes. The honest man is too often overlooked, and the mere tool of party is exalted to posts of honor and responsibility, to the manifest injury of the people and the public good. For these reasons, I hold the people should retain in their own hands the sacred right of nominating and electing every public officer. And that all officers shall be accountable to the people for their stewardship.

JEFFERSON.

LETTERS OF "JEFFERSON"-No. 2

[August 14, 1846]

MESSRS. EDITORS: I trust that I have sufficiently shown in my previous numbers the importance of withholding from the executive the nominating and appointing power. I now propose to show that this power ought not to be given to the legislature.

The power of the legislator is the most elevated and important that can be bestowed upon man in any civil society. To exercise this power requires a high degree of wisdom, a perfection of knowledge, and a clearness of judgment, which few are happy enough to possess. To manage one's own private affairs, to regulate all one's actions so as to produce the best results, requires all the sagacity of the most talented. But to manage the destinies of a whole people, to lay down the rules of action for a state or a nation, justly requires a sagacity more exalted, more discriminating and penetrating than falls to the lot of most men. And before a man should take upon him so great a responsibility he should search well his own heart to see that he is actuated altogether by the love for, and good of the people, to see his own capability, and that he is better fitted to promote the public good than any other individual. He should be well skilled in all human knowledge. Men and things should be as familiar to him as the keys of an

instrument to the most skillful performer. He should know the wants of the people he is to serve, and the best manner to satisfy those wants. He should be a lover of man and possess a strong desire to render his constituents happy. He should vanquish all selfishness in himself and act singly to promote the public welfare. His soul should blaze with patriotism, and his life should be his country's. He ought to be such as Washington, Jefferson, or Franklin. He should be endowed with such wisdom and foresight as will enable him to comprehend the past, the present, and the future; he should be able to act with that perspicuity of forethought that falls little short of prophetic. For on him depends the good or the evil of generations to come. Though the act at the time it springs into notice may be but small, yet it may be as a single cog in the vast machinery of human events which will entirely change the destiny of nations for the better or for the worse. Though Brutus gave the last stab to Rome's assassinated and dying tyrant, and though a nation was already avenged by the blood of its oppressor, still that stab was the most fatal to all tyrants, and carried with it more power than all that preceded it. It controlled the destiny of the nation. Without it, Caesar would have expired. But without it Rome would not have been suitably avenged. The receiving of thirty pieces of silver for the base turpitude of a traitor was in itself but a trifle, but on that act hung the destiny of the world of mankind. The levying a duty of three pence upon a pound of tea was of itself unworthy of notice; but it ignited a fire whose flame can never be quenched so long as nations shall people the earth.

Who then, let me ask, is capable of executing this high trust of dictating to a free people the rule of civil action? Let him stand aloof from all contaminating influences-let him be guided by one all-controlling desire of benefiting his constituents with his whole might and mind. Let him leave all patronage with the people and give his whole efforts to legislation; and when he has performed his trust, let him return to the people to enjoy with them the fruit of his labors. JEFFERSON.

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION

[August 22, 1846]

The convention to revise the constitution of New York, which is now in session at Albany, has adopted the following article on the subject of education:

6. The legislature shall, at its first session after the adoption of this constitution, and from time to time thereafter, as shall be necessary, provide by law for the free education and instruction of every child between the ages of four and sixteen years, whose parents, guardians, or employers shall be residents of the state, in the common schools now established, or which shall hereafter be established therein. The expenses of such education and instruction, after applying the public funds as above provided, shall be defrayed by taxation at the same time and in the same manner as may be provided by law for the liquidation of town and county charges.

We should rejoice to see a similar article incorporated in the constitution of Wisconsin. We consider it to be one of the paramount duties of government, to provide the means of education for every child in the state. This can be done and only done through the medium of free schools, maintained at the public expense and open to all who may choose to seek these fountains of light and knowledge. Free schools are to be found in the New England states and in some portions of New York. If the provision we have quoted shall be adopted by the people they will become general in the Empire State. But they are more necessary in Wisconsin than in any of the older states. It is only by means of free schools that our heterogeneous population can be made to assimilate, and that the children of the German, French, Irish, and Norwegian emigrants who are flocking hither in such large numbers can be thoroughly Americanized. Let the people, then, instruct their delegates to the convention to engraft such a provision upon the constitution of Wisconsin as shall secure to every child within our territorial

borders in all time to come the blessings and benefits of a good education, "without money and without price." In no way can they contribute more effectually to the influence, reputation, and prosperity of our nascent state.

VIEWS OF "R" ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ANSWERED'

[August 22, 1846]

MESSRS. EDITORS: I have watched from time to time with much interest and pleasure what has appeared in your valuable paper from your correspondents in relation to the constitution of our future state. And as you have informed us that you lay their productions before your readers for what they are worth, without any responsibility on your part, I thought I might venture to give the opinion of one Whig, and perhaps more, by joining issue with the gentleman of Lisbon (Mr. R.) upon the subject of capital punishment. The gentleman in his first article speaks strongly in favor of capital punishment. He seems to be of the opinion that for the safety and well-being of the people of this flourishing territory we must stick to the system of hanging; and [he has] brought up one case which has come under his own observation to prove that there will be less crime committed in the country while we continue to hang men, than there would be, if we should cease to take that life which I believe God alone has a right to take. And now, sir, I cannot discover that the case cited proves anything very conclusively. For a man to say that he should not have done as he once did in a fit of drunkenness if he had known the consequences, should not, in my opinion, have the least weight. It is altogether probable if that man had not been drunk he never would have murdered his wife. I have never heard a case of that kind but what the murderer would testify that had it not been for the intoxicating dram, or had he been himself, the foul deed would

'For "R's" argument, here answered, see ante, 182.

never have been done, I would ask if it can be proved that by hanging men crime is to be lessened. I think the history of this country ever since the time of hanging witches (and not the history of this country alone either) plainly tells us that capital punishment does not, never has, nor ever will, lessen crime. But, sir, to take the pardoning power from the executive in cases that are now called capital, and then imprisonment where the culprit may be kept in safety till He who gave the life may see fit to take it from him, would be as safe to the community, crime would not increase, and the guilty [would be] less likely to go unpunished; and I may add there would not then be (as has many times been the case) an innocent man hung. I will say no more now, although I have said but little; I know there are many who can take hold of this subject ably and I hope to hear from them. Now is the time to speak out.

Milwaukee, August 20, 1846.

Yours, etc.,

T.

APPEALS TO FOREIGNERS

[August 14, 1846]

We observe that as the election draws nigh some of the more unscrupulous of the Locofoco presses are revamping many of the exploded falsehoods which they have hitherto circulated in regard to the principles and measures of the Whig party, and rely upon such means to secure a triumph in the coming contest. Among these inventions of the enemy the favorite one just now seems to be the charge that the Whigs, as a party, are opposed to granting the right of suffrage to foreigners, and upon this is founded an appeal to the Irish, German, and other immigrants to vote the regular Locofoco ticket, as the only means of securing to themselves equal rights and privileges under state government. Those who thus seek to array adopted citizens in a body on one or the other side of the dividing party lines are their very worst

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »