X.
THE POLITICIAN.
“All would be deemed, e'en from the cradle, fit
To rule in politics as well as wit:
The grave, the gay, the fopling, and the dunce,
Start up (God bless us!) statesmen all at once!”
Churchill.
In a country where the popular breath sways men to its purposes or caprices, as the wind bends the weeds in a meadow, statesmanship may become a system, but can never rise to the dignity of a science; and politics, instead of being an art, is a series of arts.
A system is order without principle: a science is order, based upon principle. Statesmanship has to do with generalities—with the relations of states, the exposition and preservation of constitutional provisions, and with fundamental organizations. Politics relates to measures, and the details of legislation. The art of governing is the accomplishment of the true politician: the arts of governing are the trickeries of the demagogue. Right is the key-note of one: popularity of the other.
The large majority of men are sufficiently candid to acknowledge—at least to themselves—that they are unfit for the station of law-giver; but the vanity and jealousy begotten by participation in political power, lead many of them, if not actually to believe, at all events to act upon the faith, that men, no more able than themselves, are the best material for rulers. It is a kind of compromise between their modesty and self-love: not burthening them with the trials and responsibilities of positions for which they feel incompetent, but soothing their vanity by the contemplation of office-holders not at all their superiors. Below a certain (or uncertain) grade, therefore, political stations are usually filled by men of very moderate abilities: and their elevation is favored—indeed, often effected—by the very causes which should prevent it. Such men are prone to thrust themselves upon public notice, and thus secure, by persistence and impudence, what might not be awarded them on the score of merit.