The Politician Out-Witted Part 6

_No caution need my willing footsteps guide;-- When Love impels--what evil can betide?

Patriots may fear, their rulers lack more zeal, And n.o.bly tremble for the public weal; To front the battle, and to fear no harm, The _shield_ must glitter on the warrior's arm: Let such dull prudence _their_ designs attend, But _Love_, unaided, _shall_ obtain its end!_

[_Exeunt._

SCENE II. _OLD LOVEYET'S House._

_Enter OLD LOVEYET and TRUEMAN._

LOVEYET. I tell you it is the most infernal scheme that ever was devis'd.

TRUEMAN. And I tell you, sir, that your argument is heterodox, sophistical, and most preposterously illogical.

LOVEYET. I insist upon it, sir, you know nothing at all about the matter; and, give me leave to tell you, sir--

TRUEMAN. What--give you leave to tell me I know nothing at all about the matter! I shall do no such thing, sir--I'm not to be govern'd by your _ipse dixit_.

LOVEYET. I desire none of your musty Latin, sir, for I don't understand it, not I.

TRUEMAN. Oh, the ignorance of the age! To oppose a plan of government like the new Const.i.tution. Like it, did I say?--There never was one like it:--neither Minos, Solon, Lycurgus nor Romulus, ever fabricated so wise a system;--why it is a political phenomenon, a prodigy of legislative wisdom, the fame of which will soon extend almost _ultramundane_, and astonish the nations of the world with its transcendent excellence.--To what a sublime height will the superb edifice attain!

LOVEYET. Your aspiring edifice shall never be erected in _this_ State, sir.

TRUEMAN. Mr. Loveyet, you will not listen to reason: only attend calmly one moment--[_Reads._]--"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide--"

LOVEYET. I tell you I won't hear it.

TRUEMAN. Mark all that. [_Reads again._] "Section the first.--All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." Very judicious and salutary, upon my erudition.--"Section the second--"

LOVEYET. I'll hear no more of your sections.

TRUEMAN. "Section the second.--The House of Representatives--"

LOVEYET. They never shall represent me, I promise them.

TRUEMAN. Why, you won't hear me out.

LOVEYET. I have heard enough to set me against it.

TRUEMAN. You have not heard a _quantum sufficit_ to render you competent to give a decisive opinion; besides, you hear with pa.s.sion and prejudice.

LOVEYET. I don't care for that; I say it is a devilish design upon our liberty and property; by my body, it is;--it would reduce us to poverty and slavery.

_Enter HUMPHRY, listening._

HUMPHRY. What's that about liberty, and property, and slavery, and popery, and the devil? I hope the pope and the devil an't come to town for to play the devil, and make nigers of us!

TRUEMAN. You will have it your own way.

LOVEYET. To be sure I will--in short, sir, the old Const.i.tution is good enough for me.

HUMPHRY. I wonder what Const.i.tution magnifies.

TRUEMAN. The old Const.i.tution!--ha, ha, ha, ha. Superlatively ludicrous and facetious, upon my erudition; and highly productive of risibility--ha, ha, ha. The old Const.i.tution! A very shadow of a government--a perfect _caput mortuum_;--why, one of my schoolboys would make a better: 'tis grown as superannuated, embecilitated, valetudinarianated, invalidated, enervated and dislocated as an old man of sixty odd.

LOVEYET. Ah, that's me--that's me--sixty odd, eigh--[_Aside._] I--I--ugh, ugh, I know what you want:--a consolidation and annihilation of the States.

TRUEMAN. A consolidation and annihilation!--You certainly have bid defiance to the first rudiments of grammar, and sworn war against the whole body of lexicographers. Mercy on me! If words are to be thus abus'd and perverted, there is an end of the four grand divisions of grammar at once: If consolidation and annihilation are to be us'd synonymously, there is a total annihilation of all the moods, tenses, genders, persons, nouns, p.r.o.nouns, verbs, adverbs, substantives, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, participles,--

[_Coughs._

HUMPHRY. Oh dear, oh dear,--what a wise man a Schoolmaster is!

TRUEMAN. How can the States be consolidated and annihilated too? If they are consolidated or compounded into one national ma.s.s, surely the individual States cannot be annihilated, for, if they were annihilated, where would be the States to compose a consolidation?--Did you ever study Logic, sir?

LOVEYET. No, but I've studied common sense tho', and that tells me I am right, and consequently you are wrong; there, that's as good logic as yours.

TRUEMAN. You mean Paine's _Common Sense_, I suppose--yes, yes, there you manifest something like common sense, Mr. Loveyet.

LOVEYET. 'Tis no such thing, sir; it lately took three speakers, and much better ones than Paine, no less than three whole days, to prove that consolidation and annihilation are one and the same thing.

TRUEMAN. An execrable Triumvirate--a _scandalum magnatum_ to all public bodies: I suppose they and their adherents are now sitting in Pandemonium, excogitating their diabolical machinations against us.

LOVEYET. A pack of nonsensical stuff!

TRUEMAN. Harkee, Mr. Loveyet, I will propound a problem to you. We will suppose there are two parallel lines drawn on this floor, which, notwithstanding they may be very contiguous to each other, and advance _ad infinitum_, can never approximate so near as to effect a junction, in which fundamental axiom all mathematicians profess a perfect congruity and acquiescence:--now, to elucidate the hypothesis a little, we will suppose here is one line; and we will further suppose here is another line. [_Draws his cane over LOVEYET'S feet, which makes him jump._] Now we will suppose that line is you, and this line is compos'd, form'd, const.i.tuted, made up of discernment, political knowledge, public spirit, and true republicanism,--but, as I predicated antecedently, _that_ line is you--[_Striking his cane on LOVEYET'S feet._] You must not forget _that_.

LOVEYET. S'death, sir, do you mean to make a mathematical instrument of me, to try experiments with?

TRUEMAN. Now take notice--as the East is to the West, the North Pole to the South ditto, the Georgium Sidus to this terraqueous globe, or the Aborigines of America to the Columbians of this generation, so is that line to this line, or Mr. Loveyet to true wisdom and judgment; sometimes appearing to verge towards a coalition with them, but never to effect it.

There, sir,--in this argument, you have a major, a minor and a conclusion, consonant to the received principles of logic.

LOVEYET. Confound your senseless comparisons; your problems, your mathematics, and your Georgium Sidus.

HUMPHRY. Aye, confound your gorgon hydras, I say too.

LOVEYET. Here you have been spending your breath to prove--what?--that I am not a rational human being, but a mathematical line.

TRUEMAN. I know you are not a mathematical line; you are not the twentieth part so straight and well made;--I only wish to convince you that the present government is an _ignis fatuus_ that is leading you and thousands more to ruin.

LOVEYET. But I don't choose to be convinc'd by you.

TRUEMAN. No more than you'll be convinc'd you are sixty years old, I suppose.

LOVEYET. Now see there again, see there! isn't this enough to try Job's patience? I'll let you know that my bodily and political Const.i.tutions are both good, sir, both sound alike.

TRUEMAN. I know they are. Ha, ha, ha.

HUMPHRY. Pray, old gentleman, what sort of things may them same const.i.tutions be?