Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/201

 when, treating it as a joke, he humorously exclaimed: 'But I never proposed the plundering of the camp of an ally.' The interests of the great question ot Civil Service Reform, now being examined from various points of view, make it wise that the entire history of the recognized demand be brought into review."

In these movements for Civil Service Reform Houston sided with Nathaniel Macon, whom Jefferson called the "last of the Romans," and of whom John Randolph said: "He is the wisest man I ever knew."

Houston's relation to questions dividing the South and North, claiming, as he always did, to be a Southern man, is worthy of the more note because the result has proved that his balanced judgment saw aright the principles involved; and, that judgment was in accord with the views of Washington. When Washington urged the removal of the seat of Government from New York to Philadelphia, and then again to the unsettled location on the Potomac, that it might be removed from the moral control of a city where were great commercial and manufacturing interests, as opposed to those of the quiet rural people at large, he had learned that human nature was the same in the American States as at European courts. Urged by ambitious men, who expected to be lords, to form an Imperial Government, or one of force, he resisted; for monarchy was not for Americans any more than for Romans, a rule to be submitted to. Next after this, as Aristotle in ancient philosophy, and Montesquieu in more modern philosophy, have shown both in theory and historic fact, comes the more subtle and successful effort of "plutocracy," or of landed associations, who could absorb by commercial monopolies the value of products which ought to be equalized among producers. The great statesmen of Virginia and of the South, representing an agricultural population, such men as Macon and the Barbours saw that the very influence Washington sought to escape, followed the Government to its seat, wherever located. They saw, just as the people of New York city and State now see, that not only is "the price of liberty eternal vigilance," but that the price of just legislation for the people is more than eternal vigilance can meet. The cool, unsuspecting people at large, and their representatives unschooled in the schemes of moneyed centers by which tariffs, or the disposal of public offices, are made to promote their money schemes, the representatives of the great mass of the people are out-manoeuvered by the wily politicians who represent moneyed aristocracies. The Southern representatives saw this evil growing to gigantic proportions, when, under Monroe, in his second administration, the power of a Webster was thrown into the scale to make the interests of the agricultural districts pay for internal