On self government

On Self Government

Generally the better classes avoided the elections and dodged jury-duty,

so that the affairs of the city government necessarily passed into the

hands of a low set of professional politicians.

If this people cannot execute a form of government like the present,

that a worse one will result.

If President and Congress would go to sleep like Rip Van Winkle,

the country would go on under natural influences

I regard such persons as greater enemies to their country

and to mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense

of State pride, have taken up muskets,

and fight us about as hard as we care about.