We trust the republic with itself; that is we trust one another, and we trust one another the most implicitly when we affirm the most clamorously, one half of us, that the other half is plunging the whole of us in irreparable ruin. That is merely our way of calling all to the duty we owe to each. It is not a very dignified way, but the entire nation is in on the joke, and it is not so mischievous as it might seem.
