Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1879 — Encouragement from the Past. [ARTICLE]

Encouragement from the Past.

The manuscript diary of Mr. Henry R. Storrs, a member of Congress from Central New York fifty years ago, has been deposited with the Historical Society of Buffalo. Like the diary of every active public man of intelligence, it speaks with great bitterness of the corruption and narrowness of politics and the wrath of party spirit. During the session of Copgress of 1827, Mr. Storrs says that all the leading men of the opposition refused to attend Mrs. Clay’s parties or to call at Mr. Clay’s, who was then Secretary of State. He records at about the same time that Mr. Mr. , in the House, and that they were separated by the by-standers. He groans that strangers would think us a nation of blackguards, if they could see the performances of Congress. Mr. Storrs was a Federalist, and he and his friends thpught that the coming of Jackson was the end of all things, as Fisher Ames and the Essex Junto thought of the coming of Jefferson nearly thirty years before. In the same way Lord Eldon and his associates lamented the Reform act in England, and Lord St. Vincent regarded the abolition of slavery in the West Indies as the overthrow of the bulwarks of English liberty. If anybody finds his political faith wavering, let him read a little -history. If he thinks that we are sweeping rapidly along the broad road of destruction, let him take heart as ho observes that other people have been in a very much worse plight, yet have not been overwhelmed. It is not a mere happy-go-lucky philosophy which- assures a man that a great self-governing community, mainly of the English race and traditions, cannot easily be ruined. It ought not, certainly, to teach him indifference, nor tend to foster the complacent faith that Providence takes especial care of children, drunkards and the United States. But it should keep his cheerfulnees in good repair, and enable him to see how much of party fervor is Pickwickian.— Harper's Magazine.