Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true,
honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of
its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of
desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay.
It is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to
make the strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so
destructive of all self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and
delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as
they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And
thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in
other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most
aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from that
degradation.
That there are, among the representatives of the people in both
Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great
abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians
who are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no
reason to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of
abstaining from all mention of individuals.
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