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
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 the hierarchical
Chief of State, and this license to disseminate social hatred continues
to be called ‘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 manly 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 “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.
“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 well 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 thousand 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 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? Who else is to protest? The complaint of “incivism” would be
more reasonable if there were some one by whom it could reasonably be
made.
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. 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.