Note 35 — JOURNAL. (continued 3)

Politics of all sorts, I confess, are far beyond my limited powers of comprehension. Those of this country, as far as I have been able to observe, resolve themselves into two great motives,—the aristocratic desire of elevation and separation, and the democratic desire of demolishing and levelling. Whatever may be the immediate cause of excitement or discussion, these are the two master-springs to which they are referable. Every man in America is a politician; and political events, of importance only because they betray the spirit which would be called into play by more stirring occasions, are occurring incessantly, and keeping alive the interest which high and low alike take in the evolutions of their political machine. Elections of state officers, elections of civil authorities, all manner of elections (for America is one perpetual contest for votes), are going on all the year round; and whereas the politics of men of private stations in other countries are kept quietly by them, and exhibited only on occasions of general excitement, those of an American are as inseparable from him as his clothes, and mix up with his daily discharge of his commonest daily avocations. I was extremely amused at seeing over a hat-shop in New York one day, "Anti-Bank Hat-Store," written in most attractive characters, as an inducement for all good democrats to go in and purchase their beavers of so republican a hatter. The universal-suffrage system is of course the cause of this general political mania; and during an election of mayor or aldermen, the good shopkeepers of New York are in as fierce a state of excitement as if the choice of a perpetual dictator were the question in point. Politics is the main subject of conversation among American men in society; but, as I said before, the immediate object of discussion being most frequently some petty local interest or other, strangers cannot derive much pleasure from, or feel much sympathy in, the debate.