sure, give fearful odds in a popular or party contest.
Our Presidential elections are pervaded by an element not favorable to
fairness or purity. A dangerous mass of private and personal interest
is thrown into the scale, and selfishness usurps the place of
patriotism and a sense of public duty.

V. Distribution of so many and such valuable offices as party rewards
degrades parties from organizations upon principle, for patriotic
political ends, to mere combinations for expediency and for personal
ends. Because of the power and patronage of the President; and the
centralizing effects of federal legislation, all State and local
elections are subordinate to the quadrennial agitation for the highest
federal officer. So ramifying is this federal influence, the election
of a constable in Montana is decided by his relation to a "national"
party. State and county officers are nominated upon "national"
platforms, and support of Hayes or Tilden determines governors,
Congressmen, judges, superintendents of education, mayors, sheriffs,
policemen. Local interests are subordinated to the Presidential
struggle. The attention and ability of the people of a State are
diverted from State development to national concerns, or rather to the
question, who is to be empowered to bestow Executive patronage? In the
mind of the masses the President is the government. A Presidential
election has ceased to be a contest of ideas, or to decide a political
policy. It is a gigantic party struggle. Overwhelming importance
attaches to it, because the victor has a cornucopia of "patronage
bribery" to give to whom he likes. In other days, the canvass which
preceded elections was educatory. Able men, on opposite sides, face to
face, discussed grave questions of constitutional law or federal
policy. In the nullification controversy of South Carolina there was a
war of giants. The speeches of O'Neal, Harper, Johnston, Hamilton,
Hayne, Preston, McCuffie, and Calhoun were such masterly expositions of
the relations of the States to the general Government as would have
done credit to Edmund Burke. In other contests, North and South, were
discussions by our ablest statesmen of fundamental principles of higher
abstractions. In the last contest much of the "stump" speaking was the
veriest twaddle, an appeal to prejudice, and hate, and sectionalism,
full of scurrility, personality, and vulgar anecdote. The press, so
essential to free institutions, partakes of the de