Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/236

 212 T. W. Davenport. And the same fate which befell them involved the Demo- cratic party of the North. Sooner or later the organization went down before the slave-holding wing and adhered to it by the cohesive power of public plunder. We cannot recon- cile the private characters and political actions of the great body of citizens involved in the monstrous recrudescence of chattel slavery in the United States without treating it as a barbarism too ponderous and overwhelming for average hu- manity to resist. And further, we must consider that for over half a century it had been gradually intruding itself into the framework of our government, and through its control had been the dispenser of the immense patronage as rewards for subservience. Also must be included that blind, impul- sive, incalculable force, called party spirit, which Washington considered the chief menace to the perpetuity of republican institutions, and that other motive, the fear of disunion, and n^] become habits of thought and feeling. This disparity between private and public conduct of the same individual has been remarked a great many times and it is not peculiar to the American people. Bismarck ob- served it in Germany, and though he w^as considerably an- noyed by the fact that a good private character was not a sure guide to political conduct, he offered no explanation of the variance. Nearly every one who speaks of it seems to be puzzled, as though we should expect man to be consistent under all circumstances. That, however, is placing too high an estimate on human nature. Only a few are amenable to self-imposed bonds and a law unto themselves, and only trial will reveal them. Looking upon human conduct as a resultant depending upon circumstances, the cynic says, "every man has his price," meaning thereby that every one can be turned out of the path of rectitude by the enticements of power and gain, which is so often true that the tribe of cynics will not perish. But there are many, let us hope, whom money or power cannot buy. Not all who are taken up into the moun- tain and tempted by the Devil fall down and worship him.