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Show 14 DESPOTISI\1 entia! was the authority which the allied hierarchy exercised that few men who had property, standing, character' friends, to lose, cared to risk the consequen~ ces of th~se bulls of excommunication which were fulminated from the pulpit and the press, and those torrents of calumny, denunciation, and abuse, poured forth by a thousand fluent tongues, against whomsoever deserted the ark of the covenant, and allied himself to the uncircumcised Philistines. The democratic party were not wanting in efforts to enlist the powerful aid of religion upon their side. 'fhey made friends with the Baptists and other dissenters from the established creed, who cherished an hereditary hatred toward the congregational priesthood, and who were struggling to escape from the legal disabilities with which their heresies still continued to be visited. rrhcse clerical allies, in imitation of their opponents, mingled religion with politics, and sought to turn the excited feelings of their hearers, into political channels. They were denounced by the regular order, as hedge-priests, sectarians, wild enthusiasts, puflCd up with a ridiculous over-estimate of their spiritual endowments, ignorant, turbulent, bad men, who in attempting to overturn the platform on which was raised the sober edifice of congregationalism, sought to destroy the foundations of society, and to mix up all things in chaotic confusion. In this situation of aifairs, democratical principles were stilJ enabled to gain the ascendancy in New England, and to become the prevailing creed, by the joint effect of two separate causes, each of which was perhaps potent enough in itself to have ensured the victory. Though the professors of these principles were proscribed by the New England oligarchy, declared destitute of any claims to attentionoril\dulgcuce, represented as wild political fanatics, the disciples of Robespierre, desirous to abolish religion, and to root up morals,. to destroy the natural instincts of humanity, and to sprmkle the land with fire and blood; they found encourage- IN AlliER !CA. 15 ment, support and aid, where there was the least rea· son to expect it, to wit, at tl1e hands of the southern slave-holders. Who could have anticipated that the apostle of American democracy should himself h~ve been an aristocrat and a despot! Yet so Jt was. Jeflerson is revered, and justly, as the earliest, ablest, boldest and most far-going of those who became the ~xpoun~crs and advocates of the democratical system m Amen ca. Most of the others, whether leaders or followers, seemed driven on by a blind instinct. They felt, but did not reason. Jefferson based his pohtical opm10ns upon general principles of human .n.ature. l\'len were supposed, in other systems of poht1cs, to be helpless, blind incapable children, unfit to take care _of themseJve~, and certain, if the experiment were ~ned, to do themselves presently some dreadful and Irreparable harm. Jefferson argued, thathoweverwcakand b.lmd men might be, yet their own strength and eye-s1ght were still their surest hope, and best dependance. I~ aid were elsewhere sough.t, whence could It come . 'rhese guides, these guardmns, these go~ernors, who are they 'J Are they not men, weak and blmd?. '\Vorse yet, men ready to betray the co.nfidcnce placed 111 them, and under pretence of protect JOn, themselves to plunder and oppress? It is therefore better to make each man blind and weak though he be, the clue( guard1an of his own welfare. Subject no man to .the arbitrary control of another, who if he may be Wiser and hettcr, may just as likely'· be blinder and be w:orse. Such necessary rules of soc1al conduct as the Judgment of the majority shall approve, let them be Jaws, so long ns that judgment continues to approve them; and let the laws govern, and the laws alone.. . Such was the political creed of Jenerson. It ts the creed of democracy; and he espoused It w1th a w.a~·m, an active, almost a fanatic zeal. Tl.tc perfect political cqnality of all men; the absolute n ght ~f every man to be guided by his own pleasure and Judgment, so long as he transgresses no law, and h1s eq ual clann to a fair participation in the enactment and repeal of |
