Dr. Brownson in Boston [pp. 466-472]

DR. BROWNSON IN BOSTON.
DR. BROWNSON IN BOSTON.
MANY, doubtless, will wonder that such a philosophical mind
as Brownson's should have dwelt so long amidst the entanglements of socialistic politics. But that is the very kind of a mind
to do it, if socialism will offer a solution of the problem of human
misery. And see the result: When Brownson had finally studied
and thought out the scientific basis of the political order, he produced what mAy be considered his greatest work-the greatest
work yet written in America on general politics-The Amnerican Republic. The gravity of the topics is not equal to that of
his philosophical treatises. But fundamental political questions
are grave enough for any philosopher, and they are not obscure
to minds of Brownson's order, and through the medium of his
style they become comprehensible to the average intellect.
An incident which bears oni this side of his character escaped
my memory in preparing the last article of this series. Somewhere about I835 or i836 our Workingman's party invited him
to deliver a Fourth of July oration in New York. My brothers
and I secured his consent, and we hired the large dining-hall of
the old Washington Hotel, situated on the site of the present
Stewart building, Broadway and Chambers Street. Brownson
never was more earnest in his life than in that address. I have
forgotten the exact matter of the oration, but none who heard
him could forget his manner. The immense energy, the intense
conviction, the great voice, the emphatic gestures, not only
aroused our emotions but shook the old hotel to its foundations
,and made the glass in the windows rattle again.
Before passing from Brownson as a political agitator to
;Brownson as a searcher after religious truth, I wish to put on
,record my admiration of him as a patriot. No man ever loved
his country more devotedly. That is easily said. But what is
.far more is that his motives were universal. He loved America
for the sake of her institutions. There was little of the routine
patriotism of the average man in him. He was routine in nothing, and there was not much of the instinctive, blood-is-thickerthan-water, sentimental patriotism in him. He was incapable of
being swayed by the dominant tendencies of the caste or race
which might claim him, unless they had first mastered his reason.
.His country wsas good for him because it was good for all men.
466
[July,