And the republic now begins to look sweet and beautiful again, as
if men and patriotic citizens might walk upright without shame or
apologies of any sort. Having managed for a century or more to keep the
black man under foot, provoked a war to this end, and, in our straits,
availed of his life to spare ours, let us cherish the faith that we
are bent honestly now on securing him the rights which his courage and
loyalty have won for him and his while the republic stands. Was this
slaughter of men and expenditure of treasure, with the possible woes to
come, necessary to make us just? And shall we not be careful hereafter
that political parties play not false as before the war; the cry for
union and reconstruction but a specious phrase for reinstating the old
issues under new names? Admitted into the Union, the once rebellious
States may break out into new atrocities for recovering their fallen
fortunes. It behooves the friends of freedom and human rights to know
their friends, and trust those, and only those, who have proved
themselves faithful in the dire struggle,--
"Who faithful in insane sedition keep,
With silver and with ruddy gold may vie."
In democratic times like ours, when Power is stealing the world over
from the few to the many, and with an impetus unprecedented in the
world's history, the rightful depositories of Power, the People,
should make sure that their representatives are fitted alike and
disposed to administer affairs honorably; the rule being that of the
Best by the Best,--an aristocracy in essence as in name; since no
calamity can befall a people like the want of good heads to give it
stability and self-respect in its own, or consideration in the eyes of
foreign beholders. Ideas are the royal Presidents; States and peoples
intelligent and prosperous as they are loyal to these Potentates.
Liberty is the highest of trusts committed to man by his Creator, and
in the enjoyment of which man becomes himself a creator,--a trust at
once the most sacred and most difficult to hold inviolate. "Power is
a fillet that presses so hard the temples that few can take it up
safely." Right is the royal ruler alone, and he who rules with least
restraint comes nearest to empire.
And one of the most hopeful aspects of our national affairs is
the coming into importance and power of plain, sensible men, like
Grant and Boutwell,--men owing their places to their honesty and
useful services,--the one in the field, the other in the state. Our
village, also, is honored by the elevation of one of its distinguished
citizens for his eminent legal attainments and personal integrity.
This change for the better in our politics, it seems, came in with
President Lincoln, himself the plainest of the plain, one of the
most American of American men; is (after his successor's lamentable
career) now reinstated in our present chief magistrate, whose
popularity is scarcely secondary to any of his predecessors in the
Presidential Chair. Our national politics have obviously improved in
these respects upon later administrations, and we may reasonably hope
for the prevalence of peace and prosperity, such as the country has
not enjoyed since the times of Washington and Franklin. The reign of
principle appears to have returned into the administration of affairs,
honorable men taking the lead, softening, in large measure, the
asperities and feuds of parties. Great questions affecting the welfare
of the community, and for the solution of which the ablest heads are
requisite, are coming into discussion, and are to be settled for the
benefit, we trust, of all concerned. Reform in capital and labor,
temperance, woman's social and political condition, popular education,
powers of corporations, international communication,--these and the new
issues which their settlement will effect, must interest and occupy
the active forces of the country to plant the republic, upon stable
foundations.
"An early, good education," says Gray, in his notes on Plato's
Republic, "is the best means of turning the eyes of the mind from the
darkness and uncertainty of popular opinion, to the clear light of
truth. It is the interest of the public neither to suffer unlettered
and unphilosophical minds to meddle with government, nor to allow
men of knowledge to give themselves up for the whole of life to
contemplation; as the first will lack principle to guide them, and
others want practice and inclination to business." One might also
commend to senators and representatives this sentence from Tacitus: "I
speak," he says, "of popular eloquence, the genuine offspring of that
licentiousness to which fools and designing men have given the name of
liberty. I speak of that bold and turbulent oratory, that inflamer of
the people, and constant companion of sedition, that fierce incendiary
that knows no compliance, and scorns to temporize,--busy, rash, and
arrogant, but, in quiet and well-regulated governments, utterly
unknown." Yet I cannot say that I should have written, with my present
notion of political or religious obligation, what follows: "Upon the
whole, since no man can enjoy a state of calm tranquillity, and, at the
same time, raise a great and splendid reputation; to be content with
the benefits of the age in which we live, without detracting from our
ancestors, is the virtue that best becomes us." The sentiment has a
patriotic sound, but conceals the cardinal truth, dear to a patriot,
certainly in our times and republic, that a calm tranquillity is hardly
compatible with a life of heroic action, and that true progress, so
far from detracting from the glory of our ancestors, carries forward
that for which they battled and bled, to clothe them and their
descendants with a fresher and more enduring fame. Not in imitation of
such inflamers of the people, but in the spirit of liberty and loyalty,
have Sumner and Phillips won great and splendid reputations, if not
silenced the fools and designing men whose bold and turbulent oratory,
the genuine offspring of licentiousness, once sounded in our national
halls, and came near the separation of our Union.
Whom did the people trust?
Not those, the false confederates of State,
Who laid their country's fortunes desolate;
Plucked her fair ensigns down to seal the black man's fate;
Not these secured their trust.
But they, the generous and the just,
Who, nobly free and truly great,
Served steadfast still the servant race
As masters in the menial's place;
By their dark brothers strove to stand
Till owners these of mind and hand,
And freedom's banners waved o'er an enfranchised land.
These were the nation's trust,--
The patriots brave and just.