ers, which appears to throw
itself across the path of the democratic activity which we have
attempted to describe. This is the point of conflict--if any. We might,
it is true, take many measures to ensure the colorless and harmless
character of the system. Up to a recent time the government clerks in
England were deprived of the suffrage, in order that they might be
perfectly indifferent to politics. It is probable that in time our own
officials would lose the ordinary instincts of a democratic citizenship,
and would regard with coldness, if not contempt, the activities that
lead to a renewal of the government. But however smoothly they might
move in the pursuance of their clerical routine, however faultless they
might become in their round of prescribed duties, would they not still
obstruct the public purpose? Would not even this emasculate order of
placemen, standing apart a sacrificed though favored class, still
present themselves as unpardonable offenders? When it should be
discovered that they claimed the possession in perpetuity of the offices
in the national government, and had organized themselves as a standing
army of placemen, can it be believed that they would not be swept aside
by the same iconoclastic onset which ended the Adams administration?

We do not pause here to represent the apparent inconsistency of desiring
to de-citizenize a large number of intelligent members of the community,
or the risk of creating a class in the republic forbidden to take any
active interest in the renewals of its organization, or the impolicy of
diminishing the force and courage of the popular will in its grapple
with the problem of self-government; but all these comments may suggest
themselves.

Popular expectancy, it may fairly be declared, follows all the stations
of public life with a jealous if not an eager eye. There is abundant
evidence of this in the county and township systems. Taking, for
example, the administration of county affairs in any of the States, it
will be found that the officers, by a rule that seems generally
satisfactory, hold during short terms, and are seldom re-elected
immediately to the same place. The rule is rotation--giving a large
number of persons their "turn"--and changes are regularly made. A man
disappointed this year for a particular place waits until the time comes
to fill it again, and in many counties, other things being about equal,
the fact that he has waited patiently and now presen