carriage, the results of which have exceeded hi im-
portance any defeat of the national armies or the
failure of any campaign.

The timid and hesitating criticism with which the
subject has been commonly treated speaks ill for
the sound sense of the community. The public has
adopted the idea that it is itself the responsible gov-
erning power, and its representatives only delegates
to enroll its orders, until the healthy process of criti-
cishig a policy once adopted seems to it almost an
attack on its own authority. The confusion involved
in this assumption of responsibility is peculiarly un-
fortunate. The task of citizens who are selected to
govern is one thing. They bear the burden of lead-
ers, and they enjoy the honor; they are at liberty to
excuse or palliate their mistakes, their ignorance, or
their crimes by whatever arguments they can make
to answer their purpose. The task of the public is
wholly different. It is that of insisting, without favor
or prejudice, on the observance of truth in legisla-
tion and in the execution of the laws. To apply the
principles of truth is the first duty of every writer for
the press and ever speaker on the hustings. What-
ever seems harsh in criticism or vehement in temper
may be excused in the citizen who clings to the logic
of fundamental principles, and leaves to those whose
public conduct fails to reach his standard the labor
of justifying themselves in the best way they can.

Critics of American finance commonly begin with
the assumption that the Legal-Tender Act was neces-

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