country has more reasons to despair of him. He forthwith
adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only
_available_ one, thus proving that he is himself _available_
for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more
worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling
native, who may have been bought. O for a man who is a man,
and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you
cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault:
the population has been returned too large. How many _men_
are there to a square thousand miles in the country?
Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men
to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd
Fellow--one who may be known by the development of his organ
of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and
cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on
coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in
good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the
virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the widows
and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live
only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which has
promised to bury him decently.

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to
devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most
enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns
to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his
hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to
give it practically his support. If I devote myself to
other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at
least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's