Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/151

Rh There are periods in the histories of all countries, in which entire nations may be said to be on their good behavior. These are the times of struggles and changes, when attention is drawn to the acts of publick men, and principles have unusual influence. Such was the case at the commencement of the American revolution; at one period of the French; and is, in a degree, the present state of the British parliament. At such periods, the same representative acts under impulses very different from those which commonly influence him, and care must be had, in comparing systems, to take into the account all the facts that would be likely to affect them.

Universal suffrage is capricious and uncertain in its minor consequences, often producing results directly contrary to those which were expected.

The transitory nature of the American population renders universal suffrage less advantageous and more injurious, than it would prove to be in a less vacillating condition of society. Thus it is, we see new men, and even strangers, filling offices in places that they entered a year previously, to quit the year that will succeed. The effect of this passing connection with a community is bad, on many accounts, but it becomes seriously so, when the floating and unstable members of society have suffcient interest to unsettle its concerns with their own fluctuating interests.