BREWSTER’S RAMBLE #149 (continued)

BREWSTER’S RAMBLE #149

AMERICAN POLITICS ON PARADE

When he entered this office, but one President of the United States had deceased. The progress of the Republic was then looked upon and still aided by the counsels of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Monroe was then the favorite President, whom no party opposed. In various positions were then scattered through the land the "coming men." John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William H. Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson have all since that day been elevated to the Presidency, and twelve of the sixteen have also departed this life in the period he has been chronicler of public events.

In the fifty years, the population of our country has extended from 9 to 36 millions. The 1,500,000 slaves of 1818 had increased to 4,000,000 and then, a joyful event not anticipated in our day, were all made freemen.

In 1818, there were only twenty States in the Union. Since then Illinois, Alabama, Maine, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, California, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada, Nebraska, Oregon, and West Virginia, have been admitted; and the territories of Arizona, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Washington and Wyoming will soon be presenting their claims to become States. But not again will the claim be made as heretofore, that no free State shall be admitted without a slave State being received as an offset. He well recollects that Maine could not be received to the sister-hood, without Missouri as an offset. And so the admission battle has raged for half a century.

He might go into the public history of times past, and bring up matters relating to the twelve Presidential elections which have been the subject of newspaper record, -- speak of the party spirit which in 1824 brought forward four candidates for the Presidency, Adams, Jackson, Crawford and Clay, which resulted in Adams's election -- of the contest in 1828, between Adams and Jackson, in which the latter was elected. But these contests are a matter of national history, and need no repetition here. He has only to say, that through the whole series of Presidential elections, the Journal has sustained such candidates as were esteemed patriots of the soundest political principles on the side of a righteous government. Such man was Adams in 1824 and '28, and Clay in 1832. In 1836, the anti-masonic elements entered into the election. Van Buren was the Democratic candidate, and Webster, White and Harrison from other parties. New Hampshire was so decidedly democratic at that time that no opposing candidate was sustained in our State. In 1840, Harrison was elected by a large majority over Van Buren. The effort in New Hampshire that year gave Harrison about 6000 votes more than Van Buren received in 1836, but the latter received the vote of the State by a small majority. In 1844, Clay was again our candidate. In 1848, Gen. Taylor was elected. In 1852, Gen. Scott was our candidate. In 1856, Fremont was nominated. In 1860 and '64, the lamented Lincoln was elected -- and in 1868, Gen. Grant will find his election secure. None of these men whom the Jorunal has sustained is it now ashamed to bring up in a review of the past.

The misfortune of the country has been in electing Vice Presidents who were not sound in principle. Beware in the future.

While it has ever been the aim in the management of the paper to make it interesting to readers, care has been taken to exclude such matters as might not be fit for reading in any family circle. To preserve this negative quality has kept out many sensational articles which would perhaps, have been more popular than beneficial. Though at times pressed hard with work, it never has been performed in the office on Sunday for the half-century, except on one occasion, about 1820, when the paper, being kept open for the President's Message, was issued on Sunday morning. The strong inducement to employ the leisure of Sunday in writing articles for the paper, led to an early resolution to write nothing on that day. This resolution has been so strictly observed that he has not written a dozen lines for the paper on that day for forty years. This is not stated in any pharisaical spirit, for he is conscious of failing in far more important matters, but long experience has shown that cessation from the usual labors of the week on Sunday gives vigor for the better performance of duties through the week.

When he entered the office, the yearly Vol. at the head of the paper was XXIX. After two or three years he made up the paper regularly, and has each year changed with his own fingers these characters until they now stand LXXIX.

And yet with all the responsibilities, constant care, requisite close application and unceasing labor, the toil has been pleasant to him, nor has he ever had a wish to change it for any other business. What another decade may bring forth is only known to Him who has strewed the writer's path with matters pleasant to the recollection, and not the least among them is the good feeling of a large class of the community, many of whom have travelled in his company the long term which he this day notes.

To show time's mutations, we present at the close an impression of a fancy rule, as the only thing in our office which was in it fifty years ago.

NOTES TO ORIGINAL EDITION--(1) In his publication of the number of the Portsmouth Journal dated Feb. 15, 1868, the Rambler gives this record of a busy lifetime. It is copied just as written, and, while more particulary prepared for his newspaper, is such a chronicle of individual and general changes and characteristics, that it forms one of the most interesting features of the book; (2) Reference is here made to Weston's walk in 1868. -- ED

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