August 19, '61.
I say these things looking squarely at what is possible,
looking at what we shall be willing to do, not what we ought to do. There is
very little moral mixture in the "anti-slavery" feeling of this
country. A great deal is abstract philanthropy; part is hatred of
slave-holders; a great part is jealousy for white labor; very little is a
consciousness of wrong done, and the wish to right it. How we hate those whom
we have injured. I, too, “tremble when I reflect that God is just.”
If the people think the government worth saving they will
save it. If they do not, it is not worth saving. And when it is gone, he will
be a foolish fellow who sees in its fall the end of the popular experiment. All
that can truly be seen in it will be the fact that principles will wrestle for
the absolute control of the system. That is my consolation in any fatal disaster.
Meanwhile I hope that the spirit of liberty is strong enough in our system to conquer.
I am elected a delegate to our State Convention on the 11th
September. There was a strong effort to defeat me, but it was vain. In the
reorganization of the County Committee, the opposition triumphed, though I and
my friends were unquestionably strongest. But none of us moved a finger, and
the enemy had been busy for a fortnight. We were displaced in the Committee by
a conspiracy based upon personal jealousy of me as the “one-man power” in the
distribution of political patronage in the county. I am not sorry at the
result, for the post of chairman was very irksome, but I am sorry for
the method, for it is an illustration of the way in which we are governed.
Don't think I am lugubrious about the country, for I am
really very cheerful. The “old cause” is safe, however in our day it may be
checked and grieved. The heart of New England is true. So I believe, is the
heart of its child, the West. We go out alone to fight Old England's battle,
and she scoffs and sneers. “The Lord is very tedious,” said the old nurse, “but
he is very sure.”
SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p.
149-51
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