"
Two years later, when Harrison and Tyler carried the election for the
Whigs, he suffered the fate of his predecessor. And here I may offer an
opinion as to Hawthorne's connection with the Democratic party. When
asked why he belonged to it, he answered that he lived in a democratic
country. "But we are all republicans alike," was the objection to his
defence. "Well," he said, "I don't understand history till it's a
hundred years old, and meantime it's safe to belong to the Democratic
party." Still, Hawthorne was, so far as it comported with his less
transient aims, a careful observer of public affairs; and mere badinage,
like that just quoted, must not be taken as really covering the ground
of his choice in politics. A man of such deep insight, accustomed to
bring it to bear upon everything impartially, was not to be influenced
by any blind and accidental preference in these questions; albeit his
actual performance of political duties was slight. I think he recognized
the human strength of the Democratic, as opposed to the theorizing and
intellectual force of the Republican party. It is a curious fact, that
with us the party of culture should be the radical party, upholding
ideas even at the expense of personal liberty; and the party of
ignorance that of order, the conservating force, careful of personal
liberty even to a fault! Hawthorne, feeling perhaps that ideas work too
rapidly here, ranged himself on the side that offered the greater
resistance to them.
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