Coming back from this digression, which I have the rather indulged because of the eloquence, as well as the just Democratic sentiment it breathes, I proceed with my sketch of the homestead of our distinguished leader of the politics of Quodlibet.
If I were asked what constituted the most striking feature in the arrangements of this very admirable establishment, I should say it was the judicious admixture of a laudable economy, with the greatest possible effect in the way of outward exhibition. For instance, the grounds were embellished with sundry structures, apparently at great cost, and producing a most satisfactory impression on the eye, but which, when examined, would be found to be, for the most part, painted imitations of a very cheap kind. Thus there was to be seen from the portico, peering above a thicket on the Grasshopper Run, an old castle with ivy-crowned battlements, greatly enriching the view; at the end of the long walk in the garden, a magnificent obelisk rose forty feet above a bed of asparagus; the entrance to the stable-yard was through the Gothic archway of an old chapel, exceeding pleasant to behold; and the ice pond was guarded by a palisade composed of muskets, lances, swords, shields, and cannon, flanked at each end by a pile of drums and colors. All these several embellishments a nice observation would determine to be executed in oil painting, upon wooden screens sawed into the requisite figures. But even this expense would, perhaps, have been avoided, had it not been that Quipes, our artist, owed Mr. Flam twenty-five dollars on account of a debt which Mr. Flam had to pay for him, to get him out of jail, for the sake of his vote, when we first elected our public-spirited representative to Congress. Owing to this circumstance, connected with the fact that Sam Hardesty, the joiner, became insolvent on his contract for building the big portico, whereby Mr. Flam was obliged to advance money to him in order to get it finished, our member conceived that it would be a good plan to work these debts out of his two friends, by setting them about the decorations I have described. Besides, he reasoned with himself that it was always well to give employment to the working people about him, with a view to encourage industry and afford a practical illustration of the benignant influence of the great Democratic principle upon society—a consideration which Mr. Flam on no occasion ever permitted himself to lose sight of. By this judicious management he accomplished a fourfold purpose: namely, the beautifying of Popular Flats; the execution of these rich specimens of art, at less than half their value; the employment of two very meritorious fragments of the people; and, above all, a most satisfactory development of the excellence and usefulness of the great New-Light Democratic principle.
Mr. Flam never was what you might call a moneyed man. For although his farms were very productive, and he had a considerable income from stock in the United States Bank; and although the expenses of his family were very far short of what the world might, from the show he made, suppose them to be; yet he was in the habit of parting with his money as fast as it came to hand. There were a great number of deserving but needy persons who were often at the Popular Flats, and who did not hesitate to borrow all the funds Mr. Flam could spare, (if he had a fault it was the generosity of his lendings,) and in this way to keep him, as he has often told me himself, very bare. To make sure against loss he had the prudence never to lend without bond and mortgage, with a power of attorney to confess judgment; and as he ever avowed what he called his most irrevocable opinion, that the interest law was exceedingly oppressive upon the industry of the country, he invariably made his own bargain on that point—sagaciously remarking, as I once heard him to Nicholas Hardup, the cattle dealer, who was under execution upon a judgment, and came to borrow the amount from Mr. Flam, "Money, sir, is a commodity like wheat or cattle; its value is regulated by the relations of supply and demand. Society will never prosper till that principle is universally recognized. We go for it, Mr. Hardup, as cardinal in the Democratic creed. Labor, to be free, requires that the money contract also should be free. Why should the poor man pay six per cent. when money is worth but five? Why should he be prevented paying seven, eight, or nine, even, if he finds it his interest to give it—or cannot do without it? No, sir, Equal Rights, Liberty of Conscience, and Unrestricted Freedom of Contract—there is the buttress of Democratic government!"
It often happened, as such things will happen, that Mr. Flam became the loser by his generosity; and as it was a maxim with him to inculcate the most rigid punctuality in all engagements, he has never felt himself at liberty to relax what he regarded this salutary rule; so that, on many occasions, he has been compelled to submit to the unpleasant and expensive operation of closing his accounts on the bond and mortgage, by taking possession of the mortgaged property; and in this way, as he sometimes feelingly complains to his friends, he has become encumbered with more land than he knows what to do with. He has, however, gradually got through a great deal of this trouble by renting out his farms; a course which he intends to persevere in until his children are able to take the management of them.
Mr. Handy has several times endeavored to persuade him to make his improvements rather more permanent, and to take down these embellishments I have been describing; rather rashly as I thought, calling them, to Mr. Flam's face, pasteboard scenery, gingerbread nonsense, and twopenny gimcracks: and he insinuated that if our worthy representative would lay out some of his "accommodation" in a more solid manner upon Popular Flats, it would tell hereafter to his advantage. But Mr. Flam turns a deaf ear to all Nicodemus's preaching. He says that the accommodation is better laid out in the Chickasaw Reserve, where he means to realize a large fortune; and as to what Mr. Handy is pleased to call gimcracks and gingerbread, that, in fact, is the only kind of decoration in which a man, who respects the simplicity and purity of Democratic government, ought to indulge his taste. "If," said he, "my old castle, my obelisk, or my Gothic gateway were built of stone instead of white pine, a fair inference might be made against me of a lurking wish to restore the exploded aristocratic system of primogeniture and entails. It would be said I was building for my son and his eldest born. Thank God, no such treasonable design can be inferred from this gimcrack and gingerbread, as you wittily term it. When I go, sir, my estate is to be cut up as our Democratic republican laws ordain; and my gimcrack and gingerbread can be plowed in as easily as the dockweed. Strange as it may sound to the ears of some, gimcrack and gingerbread are the elements of our new Democratic theory. Sir, our government should glory in it:—it does glory in it. There is no reproach in the fact that we neither build, legislate, think, nor determine for the next generation. We attend to ourselves—that is genuine New-Light Democracy. We oppose Vested Rights, we oppose Chartered Privileges, we oppose Pledges to bind future Legislatures, we oppose Tariffs, Internal Improvements, Colleges, and Universities, on the broad Democratic ground that we have nothing to do with Posterity. Posterity will be as free as we are. Let it take care of itself. I glory, sir, in saying New-Light Democracy riots in gimcrack and gingerbread."
This eloquent outburst of sentiment effectually silenced Mr. Handy, and brought him thoroughly into Mr. Flam's opinion. I rejoice that my intimacy with this able statesman should have afforded me this opportunity to show the brilliancy with which his mind sparkles in the demonstration of political truth, and the wonderful power with which it converts apparently trivial thoughts into golden illustrations of the Democratic theory as lately discovered and practiced.
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE SECOND ERA—POPULATION OF QUODLIBET—INCREASE UNPARALLELED IN ANCIENT CITIES; EQUALED ONLY BY MILWAUKEE, ETC.—SUCCESS OF THE BANK—ATTACK UPON IT IN CONGRESS—THE HON. MIDDLETON FLAM'S TRIUMPHANT VINDICATION—SKETCH OF HIS CELEBRATED SPEECH BEFORE THE NEW LIGHTS—INIMITABLE IRONY ON THE DIVORCE OF GOVERNMENT AND BANK—MERITED COMPLIMENT TO THE HEAD OF THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY—THAT DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN'S OPINIONS.