John Pendleton Kennedy

“ The Genius of New-Light Democracy should array herself in steel, indue herself in panoply, buckle on her armor, shake her lance against it, or, in other words, he deemed it incompatible with free institutions to allow a Whig, or, at least, a man who never attended political meetings, and who held the Whigs in respect—to preside over such a Democratic institution as the Copperplate Bank of Quodlibet. ”

“ Sir, the Bank of the United States, in any other relation than to the currency and property of the country, is as little to me as to any man under heaven; but after the prime and vigor of life are passed, and the power of accumulation is gone, to see the children stripped, by the monstrous imposture of a paper currency, of all that the father's industry had provided for them—this, sir, may well excuse the warmth that denounces this plan, as the precursor of universal dismay and ruin. ”

“ Dabbs, isn't that metaphysics? Flan, don't you call that the true theory of the balance of power? Gentlemen, I submit it to you all."
"Real True-Grit doctrine," said Flan; "find out how the cat jumps—then go ahead."
"Fundamental, that," said Dabbs; "principles change, measures vary, names rise and fall, but majority is always majority."
"Bravo, Dabbs!" ejaculated Theodore Fog; "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur cum illis—that's our True-Grit motto. The nominative case always agrees with the verb; the people are the verb, we're the nominative case. That's logic, Mrs. Ferret. ”

“ Do you assemble in front of this edifice to make the day hideous with howling? Is it to insult Nicodemus Handy, a worthy New Light, or is it to affright the universe by pulling down these walls? Shame on you, men of Quodlibet! If you have a vengeance to wreak, do not inflict it upon us. Go to the Whigs, the authors of our misfortune. They have brought these things upon us. Year after year have we been struggling to give you a constitutional currency—the real Jackson gold——"
"Three cheers for Middleton Flam!" ”

“ Be that as it may, our distinguished member of Congress is now, by force of reflection and conviction, as pure, unadulterated, and, as our people jocularly denote it, as patent a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat as Theodore Fog himself, whose attachment to popular principles, habits, and manners, and whose unalterable adhesion to the new Democratic theory, are written in every line of his face and in every movement of his body:—and so, Mr. Flam avers, is every one of his black-cockade friends who have got an office. ”

“ I meant to say, sir, in plain phrase, that Quodlibet must inevitably, from this day forth, under the proud auspices of democratic principles—obedient to that native impulse which the profound statesmanship of this people-sustaining and people-sustained administration has imparted to it, soar aloft to place herself upon the proud pinnacle of commercial prosperity, wealth, and power. I have no doubt, Mr. Grant, your tavern lot will increase to three times its present value. You ought to take stock;—let me tell you, sir, as a citizen of Quodlibet, you ought. ”

“ Handy, who, in the most spirited manner, proclaimed his positive determination to resign, unless the order of the meeting could be preserved. "I will never consent," said he, with a most laudable energy, "to hold any post, executive or representative, for one moment after I shall have discovered that I do not possess the confidence of the people; the chair must feel itself compelled, by every sentiment which, as a friend of the New-Light Democracy, it holds dear, to resign the moment it finds that it has fallen into a minority." ”

“ Middleton Flam, in the most deservedly profound respect, and knowing him to be, if I may be allowed the expression, a bright exemplar of Democracy, and containing in himself, metaphorically speaking, the epitome of all sound opinions, I am fully authorized by the common usage regarding public characters to bring him and his affairs conspicuously into the view of the world, not for censure, neither for praise, although no man is better entitled to the latter, but for instruction. Such is the destiny of distinguished men, that their lives are common property for the teaching of their generation. ”

“ Flam will be home from Congress before long, and until then we shall suspend our opinion. We are, at all hazards, real Flam men. Flam—I drop the mister when I speak of him as a principle—is our polar star—our cynosure in politics—our Pisgah, which gives us a view of the Promised Land. As a principle, our New-Light Democracy is all out-and-out Flam. Flam is our father, our guide, our Pillar of Cloud. ”

“ We go, sir, for the will of the people—that's the principle which lies at the bottom of all our actions. If the people are for new measures, we frankly come out with them. Now, sir, the people are against the banks—they are for the Independent Treasury: of course, then, you know where to find us. You can't get round us—there we are. ”

“ The President scarcely drops a sentiment from his pen before it becomes as it were expanded into the common air of Democracy. The Globe usually leads off: the Whole Hog follows; and upon their heels the Scrutinizer, with all the rank and file of typographs, brings up a glorious chorus of repetition which leaves no hill or valley, mountain or plain in the whole land uninstructed in the Presidential utterances. Thus is it, even now, with this tribute to the intelligence and firmness of the people, and this stigma of ignominy and insult upon the old Federalists. ”

“ To my thinking, when the people have decided against a law, as they have done now against this Sub-Treasury, as you call it, twice in Congress, a President of the United States ought to have that respect for the will of the people to let it drop. That's what I call Whig Democracy—though it mayn't be yourn."
"Never!" exclaimed Tom Crop, the constable of our Borough. "If the people go agin the Dimocracy, the Dimocracy ought to put them down. We go for principle; and it's our business to try it over and over again, until we carry it. Truth is mighty and will prevail, as the old Gineral says." ”

“ But a change of men we totally abhor; a change of office, unless in the way of promotion, we utterly discountenance; and a change from a majority to a minority we execrate as wholly abominable, detestable, and in nowise to be endured. Now, in our creed, men, officers, and majorities make up the complex idea of what we denominate principle. The whole scope of the New-Light philosophy is, by the vigor of this thing principle, as I have defined it, to keep the Whigs down and our modern school of New-Light Democrats up. ”

“ This unstudied orator, with all the freshness impressed upon his mind by the mint of nature herself, contemning the aid of tinsel show, and presenting himself in the homely habiliments of an unvarnished, and, as our adversaries scoffingly add, of an unwashed New Light, poured forth a resistless flood of native oratory, remarkable for that massive vigor of thought, and that felicity of expression, which are the rare endowments only of genius, trained among the people, and whose soul is with the people. ”

“ When I go, sir, my estate is to be cut up as our Democratic republican laws ordain; and my gimcrack and gingerbread can be plowed in as easily as the dockweed. Strange as it may sound to the ears of some, gimcrack and gingerbread are the elements of our new Democratic theory. Sir, our government should glory in it:—it does glory in it. There is no reproach in the fact that we neither build, legislate, think, nor determine for the next generation. ”

“ I have defined my position years ago; and every man must see, that president of that, or any other bank, I can never be. Simon Snuffers is the man. If he can make it agreeable to the Democratic principle upon which he holds the Hay Scales—and that it is for you to say—I have no doubt he will accept. Simon has no ulterior objects;—and men without ulterior objects may do as they please. ”

“ A mint julep, Dabbs? gentlemen! Flan, a julep? Yes? A julep, a julep all round. Agreed to, nem. con. Mrs. Ferret, five juleps; charge Dabbs—Dabbs's treat."
Mrs. Ferret's anger against her spouse gradually faded under this accost; a slight glimpse of sunshine began to break over her visage as she addressed herself to the task of preparing the required compounds, and Nim Porter busied himself in picking sprigs of mint from a large bouquet of that invaluable plant, which flourished in native verdure over the rim of a two quart tumbler, in which it seemed to grow as in a flower-pot. ”

“ Flam had surveyed the whole field of contest, and had arrived at an accuracy of information in regard to the vote of each State—and, indeed, of almost every county in the Union—that, to the unstudied in such matters, would appear to be miraculous—very little short of the gift of prophecy. It is astonishing to see what proficiency an old and practiced politician arrives at in predicting, months beforehand, the precise majorities of the Democratic party over all other parties, in every election, and especially in settling the result of a Presidential election. ”

“ Agamemnon Flag, attired in a new blue coat with figured gilt buttons, white waistcoat, india-rubber watch-guard, snowy pantaloons of very fine drilling, and boots of drab prunelle, tipped at the toes with polished French leather, a watered-silk cravat, and gold spectacles, sat at the breakfast-table with Mrs. Handy and Henrietta, her daughter—the smallest, the neatest, and the best-shaped female, it is said by those who pretend to be judges, in Quodlibet. ”

“ An aged and widowed father with five sons—all heretofore steeped to the lips in the slough of British Whiggery—have had the independence to rise, in the majesty of freemen, and boldly assert the highest prerogative of an American citizen—the right of thinking, speaking, and voting in such manner as a patriotic, disinterested New-Light Postmaster, whose opinions are above all suspicion, might direct them. ”

“ We attend to ourselves—that is genuine New-Light Democracy. We oppose Vested Rights, we oppose Chartered Privileges, we oppose Pledges to bind future Legislatures, we oppose Tariffs, Internal Improvements, Colleges, and Universities, on the broad Democratic ground that we have nothing to do with Posterity. Posterity will be as free as we are. Let it take care of itself. I glory, sir, in saying New-Light Democracy riots in gimcrack and gingerbread."
This eloquent outburst of sentiment effectually silenced Mr. Handy, and brought him thoroughly into Mr. Flam's opinion. ”

“ We cannot too strongly impress upon our friends the propriety of charging upon the Whigs that we have repeatedly warned them against increasing the number of banks in the States. By this device we shall put upon their shoulders all those mischiefs of over-banking and over-trading, which they used to talk about. We must impute to them all the evils of the paper system—except the Treasury notes, which it would be well for us to praise, as an admirable Democratic scheme to give the country a METALLIC currency. ”

“ If a thorough knowledge, sir, of the characteristic traits of Federalism, long acquaintance with its designs, persecution, sir, from its votaries, a deep experience of its black ingratitude; if days of toil spent in its service, nights of feverish anxiety protracted in ruminating over its purposes; if promises violated, hopes blasted, labors unrewarded, may be deemed a stimulus to hatred—then, sir, am I richly endowed with the qualifications to expose the enemies of Quodlibetarian Democracy. I am a child, sir, of sorrow: the milk of my nature has been curdled by neglect. ”

“ In running over the events of the day, nothing is more deserving of our animadversion than the ostentatious display, by the British Federal Tory Whigs, of the changes among the people against the New-Light Democracy;—as if here and there the change of some recreant Democrat, who is afraid to follow his leader and chooses to have opinions of his own, could stay the mighty torrent of attachment to the fortunes of our chief. ”

“ The subscribers grew testy and dropped off, under the influence of this uncongenial decency exacted from the editor. Eliphalet borrowed money, his habiliments grew shabby, he took up mean callings for the sake of pelf, he became a spunge; he grew bilious, atrabilious, patriotic and indignant. He went for Reform—reform of the General Government, reform of the State Constitution, reform of private manners, reform of public observances. ”

“ In this endeavor it may easily be imagined that we found abundance to do in rummaging up old scraps of history, the falsification of public records, the oblique interpretation of equivocal laws, and in practicing all the other customary arts of warfare known to the New-Light tactics.
Admirable is that wisdom of the New Democracy which has provided such an ordeal of punishment for the man who, in opposition to their wishes, dares to make claim to the favor of the people. ”

“ God! the Democracy I've larnt in my time has taught me to do to others as I would have others do to me; and which has imbibed into my mind the principle that I am a freeman, and have a right to think for myself, to speak for myself, and to act for myself, without having a string put through my nose to lead me wherever it suits a set of scheming, lying, cunning politicians to have me for their benefit. ”