The bitterness and injustice of party is proverbial, and its want of reason is astonishing.  Men who are cool and considerate on all other subjects, are frequently the most violent and unreasonable as partisans.  It seems akin to religious fanaticism, and proscribes with the same bigotry all who will not, or conscientiously cannot, act or think with them.  It prescribes opinions, and they must be obeyed by all who belong to the organization, and without reservation or qualification.  Its exactions are as fierce and indisputable as the laws and regulations of the Jesuits.  These are changed with party necessities, and not unfrequently are diametrically antagonistic to the former creed; yet you must follow and sustain them, or else you are a traitor, and denounced and driven from the party, and often from intercourse socially with those who have been your neighbors and friends from boyhood.  In this method party compels dishonesty in politics, and is eminently demoralizing, for it is impossible to familiarize the conscience with political dishonesty without tainting the moral man in ordinary matters pertaining to life.  Once break down the barrier which separates the right from the wrong, that success may come of it, and every principle of restraint to immoral or dishonest conduct is swept away.  For this reason men of stern integrity never make good politicians.  They are very often the reliable Statesmen, never the reliable politicians.

Governor Wolcott had through his life sustained an unimpeached reputation.  He had filled to the full his political ambition.  Again and again he had been honored by his people who had grown up with him.  He had been honored by the confidence of Washington, and the nation.  He was wealthy, was old, and only aspired to do, and to see done, justice to the whole people of his native State.  In doing this he came in conflict with the unjust views and iniquitous conduct of an old, crushed party, and he was denounced as a traitor, and ostracized because he would be just.

This was the disruption forever of the Federal party in Connecticut; for though it had ceased to exist as a national organization, it still was sufficiently intact to control most of the New England States.  Mr. Monroe’s Administration had been so popular that in his second election he received every vote of every State in the Union, save New Hampshire:  one man in her electoral college, who was appointed to vote for him, refused to do so, and gave as his reason that he was a slave-owner.  New interests had supervened, old issues were dead—­they had had their day—­their mission was accomplished; old men were passing away, the nation was expanding into great proportions, and men of great talents were growing with and for the occasion; old party animosities were dimming out, and the era of good feelings seemed to pervade the national heart.  Even John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were amicably corresponding and growing affectionate at eighty.  It was but the lull which precedes the storm—­the sultry quiet which augurs the earthquake.