Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/90

84 a steady, reasoning, but vigilant superintendance is necessary to the good of all concerned; to the agent by removing the temptation to err, and to the principal by securing an active attention to his interests.

The American citizens are possessed of the highest political privileges that can fall to the lot of the body of any community; that of self-government. On the discreet use of this great power, depends the true character of the institutions. It is, consequently, an imperious duty of every elector to take care and employ none but the honest and intelligent, in situations of high trust.

Every position in life has its peculiar dangers, men erring more from an inability to resist temptation, than from any morbid inward impulses to do wrong without an inducement. The peculiar danger of a democracy, arises from the arts of demagogues. It is a safe rule, the safest of all, to confide only in those men for publick trusts, in whom the citizen can best confide in private life. There is no quality that more entirely pervades the moral system than probity. We often err on certain points, each man having a besetting sin, but honesty colors a whole character. He who in private is honest, frank, above hypocricy and double-dealing, will carry those qualities with him into publick, and may be confided in; while he who is the reverse, is, inherently, a knave.

The elector who gives his vote for one whom he is persuaded on good grounds is dishonest in his motives, abuses the most sacred of his public duties. It is true, that party violence, personal malice and love of gossip, frequently cause upright men to be distrusted, and that great care is necessary to guard against slander, the commonest of human crimes, and a besetting vice of a democracy; but the connection between the constituent and the representative is usually so close,