Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/119

Rh the same continual deviation from the thing itself to the person; the same irritability and impatience about the beloved I, which cause incessant provocations, outbreaks of temper, explanations and fresh explanations, and an infinite number of little quarrels in the infinitely prolonged progress of the great quarrel; and which make the great men, the representatives of great States, frequently like childishly brawling children. And if it happen in addition, that the State's representative is very touchy on the subject of the honour of his State, and is ready to boil up on the slightest allusion which seems to touch its credit, and especially as the States are not just now on the best terms with each other, it will easily be seen that occasion of quarrel will exist in double measure.

So much for the dark side of the Assembly. But neither is there light wanted on the other side, and it is I believe, equally strong with that which the old world can show. There is no lack of great-minded protests against darkness and selfishness; no lack either of great-minded appeals to the highest objects of the Union, or to the highest weal of humanity. The eagle sits upon the rock of the sea, and lifts his pinions, glancing now and then towards the sun, but he has not yet taken his flight towards it. Henry Clay resembles this eagle. Daniel Webster is the eagle which wheels round in the clouds, resting upon his pinions, but flying merely in circles around an imaginary sun—the Constitution. Neither of them possess that greatness which I admire in the greatest statesman of the Old World—Moses. The greatest statesman of the New world has not yet come.

But what might not this representation be if it answered its condition and its purpose; if the representative of each individual State, permeated by the peculiar individuality of his State, its natural scenery and popular life, and by the bond of its connexion with the highest object of the Union, stood forth to speak thus for it in the