Candidates are forced to pretend that they are Catholics with Protestant
proclivities, or Christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men
who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of
any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to
all. The result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men
entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until
the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own
thinking.