When M. Casimir-Perier resigned the French Presidency there were
those who regarded the act as weak, cowardly, undutiful and otherwise
censurable. It seems to me the act, not of a feeble man, but of a strong
one--not that of a coward, but that of a gentleman. Indeed, I hardly
know where to look in history for an act more entirely gratifying to
my sense of "the fitness of things" than this dignified notification
to mankind that in consenting to serve one's country one does not
relinquish the right to decent treatment--to immunity from factious
opposition and abuse--to at least as much civil consideration as is due
from the Church to the Devil.
M. Casimir-Perier did not seek the Presidency of the French Republic;
it was thrust upon him against his protestations by an apparently almost
unanimous mandate of the French people in an emergency which it was
thought that he was the best man to meet. That he met it with modesty
and courage was testified without dissent. That he afterward did
anything to forfeit the confidence and respect that he then inspired is
not true, and nobody believes it true. Yet in his letter of resignation
he said, and said truly:
"For the last six months a campaign of slander and insult has been going
on against the army, magistrates. Parliament and hierarchical Chief of
State, and this license to disseminate social hatred continues to be
called 'the liberty of thought.'"
And with a dignity to which it seems strange that any one could be
insensible, he added:
"The respect and ambition which I entertain for my country will not
allow me to acknowledge that the servants of the country, and he who
represents it in the presence of foreign nations, may be insulted every
day."
These are noble words. Have we any warrant for demanding or expecting
that men of clean life and character will devote themselves to the good
of ingrates who pay, and ingrates who permit them to pay, in flung mud?
It is hardly credible that among even those persons most infatuated
by contemplation of their own merit as pointed out by their thrifty
sycophants "the liberty of thought" has been carried to that extreme.
The right of the State to demand the sacrifice of the citizen's life is
a doctrine as old as the patriotism that concedes it, but the right to
require him to forego his good name--that is something new under the
sun. From nothing but the dunghill of modern democracy could so noxious
a plant have sprung.
"Perhaps in laying down my functions," said M. Casimir-Perier, "I shall
have marked out a path of duty to those who are solicitous for the
dignity, power and good name of France in the world."
We may be permitted to hope that the lesson is wider than France and
more lasting than the French Republic. It is time that not only France
but all other countries with "popular institutions" should learn that if
they wish to command the services of men of honor they must accord them
honorable treatment; the rule now is for the party to which they belong
to give them a half-hearted support while suffering all other parties
to slander and insult them. The action of the President of the French
Republic in these disgusting circumstances is exceptional and unusual
only in respect of his courage in expressly resenting his wrong.
Everywhere the unreasonable complaint is heard that good men will not
"go into politics;" everywhere the ignorant and malignant masses and
their no less malignant and hardly less ignorant leaders and
spokesmen, having sown the wind of reasonless obstruction and partisan
vilification, are reaping the whirlwind of misrule. So far as
concerns the public service, gentlemen are mostly on a strike against
introduction of the mud-machine. This high-minded political workman,
Casimir-Perier, never showed to so noble advantage as in gathering up
his tools and walking out.
It may be, and a million times has been, urged that abstention from
activity in public affairs by men of brains and character leaves the
business of government in the hands of the incapable and the vicious. In
whose hands, pray, in a republic does it logically belong? What does
the theory of "representative government" affirm? What is the lesson
of every netherward extension of the suffrage? What do we mean by
permitting it to "broaden slowly down" to lower and lower intelligences
and moralities?--what but that stupidity and vice, equally with virtue
and wisdom, are entitled to a voice in political affairs, a finger in
the public pie?
A person that is fit to vote is fit to be voted for. He who is competent
for the high and difficult function of choosing an officer of the State
is competent to serve the State as an officer. To deny him the right is
illogical and unjust. Participation in Government can not be at the same
time a privilege and a duty, and he who claims it as a privilege must
not speak of another's renunciation (whereby himself is more highly
privileged) as "shirking." With every retirement from politics increased
power passes to those who remain. Shall they protest? Shall they, also,
who have retired? Who else is to protest? The complaint of "incivism"
would be more rational if there were some one by whom it could
reasonably be made.
My advice to slandered officials has ever been: "Resign." The public
officials of this favored country, Heaven be thanked, are infrequently
slandered: they are, as a rule, so bad that calumniation is a
compliment. Our best men, with here and there an exception, have
been driven out of public life, or made afraid to enter it. Even
our spasmodic efforts at reform fail ludicrously for lack of leaders
unaffiliated with "the thing to be reformed." Unless attracted by the
salary, why should a gentleman "aspire" to the Presidency of the United
States? During his canvass (and he is expected to "run," not merely to
"stand") he will have from his own party a support that should make him
blush, and from all the others an opposition that will stick at nothing
to accomplish his satisfactory defamation. After his election his
partition and allotment of the loaves and fishes will estrange an
important and thenceforth implacable faction of his following without
appeasing the animosity of any one else; and during his entire service
his sky will be dark with a flight of dead cats. At the finish of his
term the utmost that he can expect in the way of reward not expressible
in terms of the national currency is that not much more than one-half of
his countrymen will believe him a scoundrel to the end of their days.