ded to the
stump, and spoken to the people as if they were a mob. We do not care
to waste words in criticising the taste of this proceeding, but deem it
our duty to comment on some of its graver aspects. We shall leave
entirely aside whatever was personal in the extraordinary diatribe of
the 22d of February, merely remarking that we believe the majority of
Americans have too much good sense to be flattered by an allusion to
the humbleness of their chief magistrate's origin; the matter of
interest for them being rather to ascertain what he has arrived at than
where he started from,--we do not mean in station, but in character,
intelligence, and fitness for the place he occupies. We have reason to
suspect, indeed, that pride of origin, whether high or low, springs
from the same principle in human nature, and that one is but the
positive, the other the negative, pole of a single weakness. The people
do not take it as a compliment to be told that they have chosen a
plebeian to the highest office, for they are not fond of a plebeian
tone of mind or manners. What they do like, we believe, is to be
represented by their foremost man, their highest type of courage,
sense, and patriotism, no matter what his origin. For, after all, no
one in this country incurs any natal disadvantage unless he be born to
an ease which robs him of the necessity of exerting, and so of
increasing and maturing, his natural powers. It is of very little
consequence to know what our President was; of the very highest, to
ascertain what he is, and to make the best of him. We may say, in
passing, that the bearing of Congress, under the temptations of the
last few weeks, has been most encouraging, though we must except from
our commendation the recent speech of Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania.
There is a pride of patriotism that should make all personal pique seem
trifling; and Mr. Stevens ought to have remembered that it was not so
much the nakedness of an antagonist that he was uncovering as that of
his country.

[Illustration: _Andrew Johnson_]

The dangers of popular oratory are always great, and unhappily ours is
nearly all of this kind. Even a speaker in Congress addresses his real
hearers through the reporters and the post-office. The merits of the
question at issue concern him less than what _he_ shall say about
it so as not to ruin his own chance of reelection, or that of some
fourth cousin to a tidewaitership. Few men have any great amount of
gathe