This satisfaction has been
denied to us, so ambitious souls are obliged to seek other means to
feed their vanity.
Even before we were born into the world of nations, an attempt was
made amongst the aristocratically minded court surrounding our
chief magistrate, to form a society that should (without the name)
be the beginning of a class apart.
The order of the Cincinnati was to have been the nucleus of an
American nobility. The tendencies of this society are revealed by
the fact that primogeniture was its fundamental law. Nothing could
have been more opposed to the spirit of the age, nor more at
variance with the declaration of our independence, than the
insertion of such a clause. This fact was discovered by the far-
seeing eye of Washington, and the society was suppressed in the
hope (shared by almost all contemporaries) that with new forms of
government the nature of man would undergo a transformation and
rise above such puerile ambitions.
Time has shown the fallacy of these dreams. All that has been
accomplished is the displacement of the objective point; the
desire, the mania for a handle to one's name is as prevalent as
ever. Leave the centres of civilization and wander in the small
towns and villages of our country. Every other man you meet is
introduced as the Colonel or the Judge, and you will do well not to
inquire too closely into the matter, nor to ask to see the title-
deeds to such distinctions.
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