Showing posts with label Party Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Party Politics. Show all posts

Sunday, June 30, 2019

James M. Garnett* to Robert M. T. Hunter.

January 4th, 1838.

Dear Robert: I am anxious to hear whether you found my letter, on your return. Not because there was anything in it, of which either of us need be ashamed; but because no man likes his private letters to become topics of public remark, without his consent. It was, (if I recollect), a free commentary upon the opinions and feelings expressed in your letter, and if Tom, Dick, and Harry were to get hold of it, might possibly cause those feelings and opinions to be misused by your political enemies. My anxiety, therefore, that my letter should not miscarry, is felt on your acc[oun]t, for I (like the Eels skinned alive) have become callous to newspaper attacks; nay, I have been fool-hardy enough to provoke them, as you shall see. The proofs will be sent to you under another cover, and headed, “Dialogue the second, between the two old political cronies.” This, I am unreasonable enough to beg you to read, as it contains an attempt to answer your arguments in favor of public men becoming party-men. Not that I can believe it possible for you ever to become a party-man; but because I think you utterly wrong in the notion which you seem to entertain, that to be useful in public life, a man must join some political party or other. This I most confidently believe to be one of the greatest, the most fatal errors that any honest public man ever committed; and therefore I am painfully excited to prevent (if I can) a most beloved sister's son, whom I highly value, for his own merits, from adopting a creed which would paralise his own usefulness, and so far strengthen the damnable doctrine of political Partyism. Don't understand me as fearing that you will ever knowingly fall into party-ranks; but I much fear the effect of your apparent belief, that all men must be either drones, or non-entities in political life, unless they will fall into these ranks, and be led or driven, as party-politics require. My own belief is and always has been, ever since I had a capacity and moral right to believe anything, that the entire stock of knowledge and power which any man possessed to contribute to the welfare and happiness of his species, might always be beneficially exercised, under our Institutions, without his attaching and binding himself to any party whatever, either in politics, morals, or religion. Such attachment and binding might appear, for a time, to increase his power, because it increased his popularity; but it would always prove a “penny wise and pound foolish” business. This is the all important, the vital fact of which it is indispensably necessary that all honest public men should assure themselves. As party-men, they may gain and exercise great personal influence; but it is an “ignis fatuos” which can not possibly delude those who understand its real nature; and the mischief is, that all who have been once led astray by the false light, will always hesitate to follow that which is certainly true, certainly of heavenly origin. Young men are prone to be Enthusiasts, old men to be Laxidos on all enthusiastic feelings. Hence the former generally overshoot the true center, as far as the latter undershoot it. What should a wise man determine between the two? He should take for his guide the maxim “in medio tutissimus ibis;” and adhere to it, too, in defiance of all party denunciations against “trimmers, and fence men? We must either adopt and act upon this belief, or we must utterly eschew the notion, that the People are competent to self government; and in the latter case we must sell ourselves to the Devil, (politically speaking,) as fast as we can. As I cannot possibly believe that you have a fancy for making any such sale, I address to you these remarks, merely to cheer you in your course, and to prevent your taking, what I consider a false view of your own powers to pursue it, with a fair prospect of success. Weigh the matter fairly, bestow on it your most deliberate judgment, and should your final determination be, that a man can do no good in Congress, unless he becomes a party-man, then “curse and quit,” the moment your time is out. Nay, call down curses upon your own head, if you ever enter into public life again. But I must say, you have no just cause to make any such desperate resolve; and that you have rational ground for believing, that the People of the United States will yet learn to estimate the no party-men as their only true and best friends. I believe these men to be strong enough, if they would only understand each other, and act in concert, to make battle successfully against all the party-men of the Nation. The conflict would be arduous and long protracted; but to despair of its favorable issue, would be to believe that truth, justice, and virtue will never obtain the ascendancy in this World: and thus to think, is to discredit the word of God himself.
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* Representative in Congress from Virginia, 1805-1809; died May, 1843.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916 in Two Volumes, Volume II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter 1826-1876, p. 28-30