people? There may be a few bright examples among them, but the great body must be time-servers. There is no getting the results of virtue and high-mindedness out of selfish calculations and fears. Arrange it as you will, it always comes back to the hopeless problem, which Carlyle says modern shrewdness is wasting time on,—namely, "Given a world of knaves, to educe an honesty from their joint action."
It may be thought, and perhaps justly, that the election of General Taylor by so large a majority, in the face of his refusals to make himself a party man, indicates some re-action in the feelings of the people in regard to pledged candidates. There is no doubt an instinctive admiration felt for one who exhibits an independence of this kind; and when, as in the case of General Taylor, it happens to be supported by other qualities which strike the imagination of the people, it may be triumphantly carried through. But the difficulty is, that it is merely an instinctive feeling, and not an intelligent opinion, in favor of this independence, and that only with a portion of the people. Many feel, on the contrary, as if it were a kind of underhand proceeding in a candidate to refuse to "support" the party which is about to "support" him. They look upon it as a species of fraudulent reserve in a bargain, by which they may be entrapped into giving their price, without receiving their equivalent. Even those who have an admiration of the kind of mind which disdains to bind itself, are afraid to give way to the feeling. The "sober second thoughts," so much lauded, come in and spoil their better instincts. They think they must bind a man by his ambition or his interests to agree with and act for them, lest his intelligence or his conscience should lead him to take some other course. Here is exactly the difficulty.
The representative is regarded as the agent of his constituents, chosen to do their bidding. They would like to have a noble and a free agent, provided always he will do their bidding: in short, they wish to secure the aid and guidance of virtue, by means which can command the services only of selfishness. Even in General Taylor's case, we fear that his sound views, shown in refusing to hold out any hopes to any class of partisans, was but little appreciated in fact,
