Yet the American citizen
plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently
dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce
it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great
sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness
and independence.
'You carry,' says the stranger, 'this jealousy and distrust into
every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from
your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates
for the suffrage, who, in their very act, disgrace your
Institutions and your people's choice. It has rendered you so
fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed
into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you
are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this,
because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public servant, you
distrust him, merely because he is rewarded; and immediately apply
yourselves to find out, either that you have been too bountiful in
your acknowledgments, or he remiss in his deserts. Any man who
attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may
date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any
notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the
character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust,
and is believed.
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