Now that "the masses" [146] exercise political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, to flatter them, and to speak nothing but smooth words to them.

They are credited with virtues which they themselves know they do not possess.
The public enunciation of wholesome because disagreeable truths is avoided; and, to win their favour, sympathy is often pretended for views, the carrying out of which in practice is known to be hopeless.
It is not the man of the noblest character--the highest-cultured and best-conditioned man--whose favour is now sought, so much as that of the lowest man, the least-cultured and worst-conditioned man, because his vote is usually that of the majority.

Even men of rank, wealth, and education, are seen prostrating themselves before the ignorant, whose votes are thus to be got.

They are ready to be unprincipled and unjust rather than unpopular.

It is so much easier for some men to stoop, to bow, and to flatter, than to be manly, resolute, and magnanimous; and to yield to prejudices than run counter to them.