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But other dangers undeniably beset the country, that have no connection with this question of Slavery. However repugnant it may be to the pride of human nature, or the favorite doctrines of the day, there can be little question that the greatest sources of apprehension of future evil to the people of this country, are to be looked for in the abuses which have their origin in the infirmities and characteristics of human nature. In a word, the people have great cause to distrust themselves; and the numerous and serious innovations they are making on all sides, on not only the most venerable principles in favor with men, but on the divine law, must cause every reflecting man to forbode a state of things, far more serious than even that which would arise from a separation of the States into isolated parts.

The particular form in which this imminent danger is now, for the first time seriously since the establishment of the Government, beginning to exhibit itself, is through the combinations of the designing to obtain a mercenary corps of voters, insignificant as to numbers, but formidable by their union, to hold the balance of power, and to effect their purposes by practising on the wilful, blind, wayward, and, we might almost add, fatal obstinacy of the two great political parties of the country. Here, in our view, is the danger that the nation has most to apprehend. The result is as plain as it is lamentable. In effect, it throws the political power of the entire Republic into the hands of the intriguer, the demagogue, and the knave. Honest men are not practised on by such combinations; but, with a fatality that would seem to be the very sport of demons, there they stand, drawn up in formidable array, in nearly equal lines of open and deriding hostility, leading those who no longer conceive it necessary to even affect the semblance of respect to many of the plainest and most important of the principles of social integrity that have ever been received among men.

Anyone familiar with the condition of Europe must know, that under the pressure of society in that quarter of the world, and toward which we are fast tending by a rapid accumulation of numbers, the present institutions of America, exercised under the prevalent opinions of the day, could not endure a twelvemonth. That which is now seen in France rendering real political liberty a mere stalking-horse for the furtherance of the projects of the boldest adventurers, would inevitably be seen here; the bayonet alone would be relied on for the preservation of the nearest and dearest of human rights. There could and would be no other security for the peace of society, and that circle of power which, rising in the masses, ends in the sceptre of the single despot, would once more be made as it might be in derision of all our efforts to be free.

{now seen in France = following the French Revolution of 1848 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-1873), nephew of the first Emperor Napoleon, had been elected as President of France and was consolidating his power–in December 1851, shortly after Cooper’s death, he would proclaim himself Emperor Napoleon III}

If the existence of nations resembled that of individuals, it would not be difficult to foretell the consequences of this state of things; but communities may be said to have no lives, and are ever to be found occupying their places, and using the means assigned to them by Providence, whether free or enslaved, prosperous or the reverse. No one can foretell the future of this great country, in consequence of the extent and number of its outlets, each a provision of Providence to put a check on revolutions and violence.

The elements of a monarchy do not exist among us; the habits of the entire country are opposed to the reception of such a form of government. Nor do we know, bad as our condition is rapidly getting to be, strong as are the tendencies to social dissolution, and to the abuses which demand force to subdue, that anything would be gained by the adoption of any substitute for the present polity of the country to be found in Europe. The abuses there are possibly worse than our own, and the only question would seem to be as to the degree of suffering and wrong to which men are compelled to submit through the infirmities of their own nature. There is one great advantage in the monarchical principle, when subdued by liberal institutions, as in the case of the government of that nation from which we are derived, which it would seem a republic cannot possess. We allude to the transmission of a nominal executive power that spares the turmoil, expense, and struggles of an election, and which answers all the purposes of the real authorities of the State in designating those who are to exercise the functions of rulers for the time being. It has often been predicted that the periodical elections of the chief magistrate of this country will, at no distant day, destroy the institutions. It would be idle to deny that the danger manifestly increases with the expedients of factions; and that there are very grave grounds for apprehending the worst consequences from this source of evil. As it now is, the working of the system has already produced a total departure from the original intention of the Government; a scheme, probably, that was radically defective when adopted, and which contained the seeds of its own ruin. Recourse to electors has become an idle form, ponderous and awkward, and in some of its features uselessly hazardous. We are in the habit of comparing the cost of government in this country with that of other nations in the Old World. Beyond a question, the Americans enjoy great advantages in this important particular, owing to their exemption from sources of expenses that weigh so heavily on those who rely for the peace of society solely on the strong hand. But confining the investigation simply to the cost of Executives it may well be questioned if we have not adopted the most expensive mode at present known among civilized nations. We entertain very little doubt that the cost of a presidential election fully equals the expenditures of the empire of Great Britain, liberal as they are known to be, for the maintenance of the dignity of its chief magistracy. Nor is this the worst of it; for while much of the civil list of a monarch is usefully employed in cherishing the arts, and in fostering industry, to say nothing of its boons to the dependent and meritorious in the shape of pensions, not a dollar of the millions that are wasted every fourth year among ourselves in the struggles of parties, can be said to be applied to a purpose that has not a greater tendency to evil than to good. The simple publication of documents, perhaps, may form some exception to these abuses; but even they are so much filled with falsehoods, fallacies, audacious historical misstatements, exaggerations, and every other abuse, naturally connected with such struggles, that we are compelled to yield them our respect and credulity with large allowances for caution and truth. Were this the place, and did our limits permit, we would gladly pursue this subject; for so completely has the hurrah of popular sway looked down everything like real freedom in the discussion of such a topic as to render the voice of dissent almost unknown to us. But our purpose is merely to show what probable effects are to flow from the abuses of the institutions on the growth of the great commercial mart of which we are writing.