Impending Fate of the Country [pp. 561-570]

DE B O W'S REVIEW.
ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1846.
DECEMBER, 1866.
ART. I.-THE IMPENDING FATE OF THE COUNTRY.
THE RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE WAR.
RADICALISM, or to speak more accurately, " Rationalism" and
Conservatism are as old as mankind. The bold, the enterprising,, the men of genius, energy and industry have always
relied on the dictates of their own reason, regardless of the
lessons, the experience and the admonitions of the past-always inventive and progressive, they are frequently rash, precipitate and inconsiderate. They constitute a necessary element in the organism of society, but unless restricted, checked,
balanced and counterpoised by the conservative element, which
is their opposite or antinome, they speedily become the architects of ruin, of anarchy, of agrarianism, of licentiousness,
and of universal infidelity and moral depravity. Want of
faith, religious, political, moral and social, and implicit reliance
on-the suggestions of their own reason, however unenlightened
by study or experience, have been at all times the distinguishing characteristics of this party, or part of mankind.
Their necessary opposing and balancing force or antinome,
the Conservatives, are studious observers of the history and
experience of the past, and treasure up and heed the lessons
which it teaches, because they believe that, human nature never
materially changing, the religion, the laws, and the political
institutions adapted to it in the past will be equally well
adapted to it in the future. They fight under the banner of
faith, wholly rejecting reason when it conflicts with faith in the
experience, the lessons, and the authority of the past. They
oppose all innovation, all change, all revolution, all progress,
almost all improvement. Theirs is the stand-still policy; which
is sure to become retrogressive, when not dragged along by
their antinomes, the Rationalists.
Conservatives are too timid, too cautious, rely too much on
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