It wouldn't do here now, Sam, nor perhaps for
a century to come, but it will come sooner or later with some
variations. Now the Newtown pippin, when transplanted to England,
don't produce such fruit as it does in Long Island, and English
fruits don't preserve their flavour here, neither; allowance must
be made for difference of soil and climate (Oh Lord! thinks I, if
he turns in to his orchard, I'm done for; I'll have to give him the
dodge somehow or another, through some hole in the fence, that's
a fact; but he passed on that time). 'So it is,' said he, 'with
constitutions; our'n will gradually approximate to their'n, and
their'n to our'n. As they lose their strength of executive, they will
varge to republicanism, and as we invigorate the form of government
(as we must do, or go to the old boy), we shall tend towards a
monarchy. If this comes on gradually, like the changes in the human
body, by the slow approach of old age, so much the better; but I
fear we shall have fevers, and convulsion-fits, and cholics, and an
everlastin' gripin' of the intestines first; you and I won't live to
see it Sam, but our posteriors will, you may depend.'
"I don't go the whole figur' with minister," said the Clockmaker,
"but I do opinionate with him in part. In our business relations we
belie our political principles; we say every man is equal in the
Union, and should have an equal vote and voice in the Government; but
in our banks, railroad companies, factory corporations, and so on,
every man's vote is regilated by his share and proportion of stock;
and if it warn't so, no man would take hold on these things at all.
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