ice, coarse brutality,
and a childish veneration of women. Even worse things are the order of
the day: most iniquitous oppression of the black freemen, lynch law,
frequent assassination often committed with entire impunity, duels of
a savagery elsewhere unknown, now and then open scorn of all law and
justice, repudiation of public debts, abominable political rascality
towards a neighbouring State, followed by a mercenary raid on its rich
territory,--afterwards sought to be excused, on the part of the chief
authority of the State, by lies which every one in the country knew to
be such and laughed at--an ever-increasing ochlocracy, and finally
all the disastrous influence which this abnegation of justice in high
quarters must have exercised on private morals. This specimen of a
pure constitution on the obverse side of the planet says very little
for republics in general, but still less for the imitations of it in
Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and Peru.

A peculiar disadvantage attaching to republics--and one that might
not be looked for--is that in this form of government it must be more
difficult for men of ability to attain high position and exercise
direct political influence than in the case of monarchies. For always
and everywhere and under all circumstances there is a conspiracy, or
instinctive alliance, against such men on the part of all the stupid,
the weak, and the commonplace; they look upon such men as their
natural enemies, and they are firmly held together by a common fear of
them. There is always a numerous host of the stupid and the weak,
and in a republican constitution it is easy for them to suppress and
exclude the men of ability, so that they may not be outflanked by
them. They are fifty to one; and here all have equal rights at the
start.

In a monarchy, on the other hand, this natural and universal league of
the stupid against those who are possessed of intellectual advantages
is a one-sided affair; it exists only from below, for in a monarchy
talent and intelligence receive a natural advocacy and support from
above. In the first place, the position of the monarch himself is
much too high and too firm for him to stand in fear of any sort of
competition. In the next place, he serves the State more by his will
than by his intelligence; for no intelligence could ever be equal
to all the demands that would in his case be made upon it. He is
therefore compelled to be always availing himself of other men's