Our constitution and laws have nothing specifically American about them.
They are copies from the English, modified in some particulars, which
have been the inducement “to gather the spoils while we may.” The
President is an English king under another name, selected by the
“caucus,” the worst element in politics, and elected by the people,
because, under the vicious methods that are in vogue they have no way to
vote save for one of the two at whom ten thousand papers vie with each
other in throwing mud during the campaign. Many who have come to know
how Presidents are made have abandoned the polls in disgust. The Senate
is a badly abridged edition of the House of Lords, while the House of
Representatives is the same of the House of Commons. In the law of
primogeniture only do our laws differ materially from those of England,
this good feature having been borrowed from another source. Nor have we
any political literature save the Declaration of Independence which has
a distinct national character about it that is purely American, and it
is this that we celebrate year after year; it is this and this only that
calls out the patriotism of the people.
As far as the Constitution is concerned it is Dead Sea fruit. It is an
old and musty English sermon to which we have prefixed a new and vital
text, the text and sermon having no common ground or meaning. The
condition of the people and the country could scarcely have been worse
had we had Kings and Parliaments, instead of Presidents and Congresses.
A tree, let it be called by whatever name, is known by the fruit it
bears. If we are to judge the political tree in this country in this
way, shall we not be forced to say that we have gathered thorns from
grapes and thistles from figs? In purity in the administration of
justice, our Government can stand no comparison with that of England.
Money here is king, and judge and jury also. Then must there not be
something radically wrong somewhere, and what can this be, except the
engrafting of a new political idea into an old political system? This is
what is the matter, and cringe as we may, there can never be a change
greatly for the better until the institutions of the country are
remodelled by the inspiration of that which led to their establishment.