Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/69

 Matthew Harvey.

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��citizen of prorainencc and note. The F'ederalist neigiibor had a youthful son who was an enthusiastic admirer of Heury Clay. Being young, the son could not well brook the reports cir- culated adversely to the personal reputation of his favorite statesman. Being full of immature political zeal, the youth ventured to ask Matthew Harvey directly, though he was a guest in his own father's house, if a certain accusation made against Hen- ry Clay was true. Such conduct shocked the young man's father ex- ceedingly. Matthew Harvey was none the less annoyed by it. Still he he did not rebuke the youth or refuse to answer. Nor was his reply a di- rect one. He only said, " I have no doubt that when Mr. Clay was a young man, in the fervor and impet- uosity of youth, he may have done some tilings that his mature judgment would not countenance in riper years." This reply, of which we have aimed to give only the substance, was spok- en mildly. Yet there was a peculiar emphasis to the words '• 3'oung man," and a general bearing of the whole remark upon the indiscretion of youth and the discretion of manhood, that created the sharpest sense of rebuke in the mind of the inquirer, who was suddenly reduced to that humility that indulges no impertinent inquiries in the presence of those before whom it is its first privilege to be silent.

Matthew Harvey was many years in office. He was the incumbent of smaller as well as of greater offices. In this we have one evidence of his cosmopolitic tendencies. He was moderator of Hopkintou's annual town-meeting from 1826 to 1828 ; also in 1833 and 1834 ; again in 1840

��and 1841 ; and finally from 1845 to 1850. During all tlie time that Mat- thew Harvey was a resident of Hop- kinton, there were palmy days of anti- Federalism, or of Democracy. There might have been a scliism now and then over subsidiary political ques- tions, but on an issue of Democracy or no Democracy there was no waver- ing. In possession of a large work- ing majority, a political party enjoys an exemption that encourages admin- istrative laxness. In this fact we have a suggestion of the truth that too much prosperity is often the earn- est of sudden adversity. The anti- Federalist party being in a sense a protest against public political form- alism, the evidences of a certain in- herent laxness of method in its pro- ceedings could not fail to be witnessed during its long predominance in Hop- kinton. Informality, in individuals and in parties, often obtains more in speech than in action. Human nature will not always talk by the card, even when in action it literally obeys the precept. This phenomenon of verbal license is always the most prominent in reactive social organizations.

In politics Matthew Harvey repre- sented the reactive element in govern- ment. In the position of a political leader, it was but natural that he should at times exhibit the tendency to outward indifference to formalism so natural to his political clan. It has been told of him, that, beiuar chosen to his frequent office of mod- erator of town-meeting, instead of saying to the voters of the town, "You will now please forward your ballots for town-clerk," he would sometimes sa^', — " You will now please forward your ballots for Joab

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