Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/52

Rh But I would not lay too much stress upon the mental powers of the true statesman; for his moral qualities are more important. I cannot speak of them all, for what high trait does he not need? He needs courage, the love of justice, and a supreme patience. It was Pitt, I think, who said that the most needful virtue in administration is patience. The real lags so exasperatingly behind the ideal! Let me single out two moral qualities which the American statesman especially needs,—independence and highmindedness. Independence of character! that sturdy, inflexible, and self-reliant force of will which enables a statesman to follow the dictates of his own judgment and conscience, in opposition to party passion or the fury of the multitude, if need be to his own injury; and highmindedness! that elevation of soul, founded on self-respect, which manifests itself in his avoidance of personal or petty altercations, in the whole tone of his public speech, and in his steadfast respect for the people. Universal suffrage engenders a peculiarly revolting kind of sycophant; namely, the flatterer of the multitude. To flatter and cajole a few eminent personages under despotic forms of government is not so mean a task as to flatter and cajole masses of men under republican forms. A deified emperor was but a transitory delusion; a deified populace, flattered with such appellations as “imperial” and “sovereign,” is a much more durable and dangerous idol. Many of our public men manifest in the surest of all ways an