They agreed, says
Jefferson, to change their votes, "White with a revulsion of stomach
almost convulsive." [Footnote: _Works,_ Vol. IX, p. 87. Cited by
Beard, _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy,_ p. 172.]
In the crystallizing of a common will, there is always an Alexander
Hamilton at work.
CHAPTER XIV
YES OR NO
1
Symbols are often so useful and so mysteriously powerful that the word
itself exhales a magical glamor. In thinking about symbols it is
tempting to treat them as if they possessed independent energy. Yet no
end of symbols which once provoked ecstasy have quite ceased to affect
anybody. The museums and the books of folklore are full of dead
emblems and incantations, since there is no power in the symbol,
except that which it acquires by association in the human mind. The
symbols that have lost their power, and the symbols incessantly
suggested which fail to take root, remind us that if we were patient
enough to study in detail the circulation of a symbol, we should
behold an entirely secular history.
In the Hughes campaign speech, in the Fourteen Points, in Hamilton's
project, symbols are employed. But they are employed by somebody at a
particular moment. The words themselves do not crystallize random
feeling. The words must be spoken by people who are strategically
placed, and they must be spoken at the opportune moment. Otherwise
they are mere wind.
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