Or see the following description of the sort of rulers who prevail in England, no less than in America:—
"If our government is to be a No-Government, what is the matter who administers it? Fling an orange-skin into St. James Street, let the man it hits be your man. He, if you bend him a little to it, and tie the due official bladders to his ankles, will do as well as another this sublime problem of balancing himself upon the vortexes, with the long loaded pole in his hand, and will, with straddling, painful gestures, float hither and thither, walking the waters in that singular manner for a little while, till he also capsize, and be left floating feet uppermost,—after which you choose another."
Concerning which we may say, that if this is the result of monarchy and aristocracy in England, we can stick a little longer to our democracy in America. Mr. Carlyle says that the object of all these methods is to find the ablest man for a ruler. He thinks our republican method very insufficient and absurd,—much preferring the English system,—and then tells us that this is the outcome of the latter; that you might as well select your ruler by throwing an orange-skin into the street as by the method followed in England.
Despotism, tempered by assassination, seems to be Carlyle's notion of a good government.
The pamphlet "Stump-Orator" is simply a bitter denunciation of all talking, speech-making, and writing, as the curse of the time, and ends with the proposition to cut out the tongues of one whole generation, as an act of mercy to them and a blessing to the human race.
Thus this collection of "Latter-Day Pamphlets" consists of the bitterest cynicism. Carlyle sits in it, as in a tub, snarling at freedom, yelping at philanthropy, growling at the English government, snapping at all men who speak or write, and ending with one long howl over the universal falsity and hollowness of mankind in general.
After which he proceeds to his final apotheosis of despotism pure and simple, in this "Life of Frederick the Great." Of this it is not necessary to say more than that Frederick, being an absolute despot, but a very able one, having plunged Europe into war in order to steal Silesia, is everywhere admired, justified, or excused by Carlyle, who reserves his rebukes and contempt for those who find fault with all this.
That, with these opinions, Carlyle should have taken sides with the slaveholders' conspiracy against the Union is not surprising. His sympathies were with them; first, as slaveholders, secondly, as aristocrats. He hates us because we are democrats, and he loves them because they are despots and tyrants. Long before the outbreak of the rebellion, he had ridiculed emancipation, and denounced as folly and evil the noblest deed of England,—the emancipation of her West India slaves. In scornful, bitter satire, he denounced England for keeping the fast which God had chosen, in undoing the heavy burdens, letting the oppressed go free, and breaking every yoke. He ridiculed the black man, and described the poor patient African as "Quashee, steeped to the eyes in pumpkin." In the hateful service of oppression he had already done his best to uphold slavery and discourage freedom. And while he fully believed in enslaving the laboring population, black or white, and driving it to work by the cart-whip, he as fully abhorred republicanism everywhere, and most of all in the United States. He had exhausted the resources of language in vilifying American institutions. It was a matter of course, therefore, that at the outbreak of this civil war all his sympathies should be with those who whip women and sell babies.
How is it that this great change should have taken place? Men change,—but not often in this way. The ardent reformer often hardens into the stiff conservative. The radical in religion is very likely to join the Catholic Church. If a Catholic changes his religion, he goes over to atheism. To swing from one extreme to another, is a common experience. But it is a new thing to see calmness in youth, violence in age,—to find the young man wise and all-sided, the old man bigoted and narrow.
We think the explanation to be this.