Terribly in Earnest [pp. 172-177]

TERRIBLY IN EARNEST.
indiscriminate abuse of that whole section. Even such distinguished
Radicals as Gerret Smith, Horace Greeley and Henry Ward
Beecher, evince much magnanimity of feeling towards us, and
obviously now entertain no nailicious hatred and no spirit of cruelty
or revenge for our oppressed and down-trodden people. They de serve the more credit, that, retaining(r their political opinions, they
have moderated and mollified their feelings.
We should imitate the example of such men as these; and whilst
maintaining our rights and defending our opinions in a fearless and
manly way, we should be equally solicitous to applaud those who
are disposed to render us justice, as to censure and expose those
who wrong and oppress us. Even in censuring and exposing the
wicked and the corrupt, we should preserve our tempers and in dulge in no abusive epithets. Ridicule is the most effective weapon
with which to assail fanatics, and to employ ridicule successfully,
one must keep in a high good humor.
It is not at all improbable that, even now, the Conservatives out number the R:idicals at the North, and may oust them from office
at the next Congressional election. Sure we are that the Radicals
cannot much longer stand up under the weight of an enormous and
increasing national debt, heavy and oppressive taxation, a large
standing army in time of peace, negro suffrage and negro equality,
a dissevered Union, and a Constitution broken, disregarded and
thrown aside. Worse than all, four millions of strong and able
negroes, paying little or no tax to a Government that has incurred
a debt of three thousand millions to liberate them; but, on the contrary, costing the whites, directly and indirectly, not less than fifty
millions a year, under Radical rule, in petting, spoiling and corrupting them. The present party in power cannot much longer stand up
under such weights as they have volunteered to carry. In the
meantime, it will be most dignified and most politic for the South
to bear with quiet composure all the injustice, wrong and oppression which their terrible earnestness and malignant passions may
hurry them on to inflict. Give themn rope enough and they will
surely hang themselves.
Our institutions are of English origin, and our people of English
descent. Unconquerable, uneradicable elasticity and vitality have
ever distinguished English institutions and love of liberty. Magna
Charta and her various statutes, intended as assertions and recognitions of the immemorial prescriptive rights and liberties of En,glishmen, though frequently disregarded and violated by usurping and
tyrannical monarchs, gained renewed strength and vigor from each
violation; were time and again reasserted, recognized and acknowledged by siucceeding monarchs, until to-day Magna Charta, the
Writ of Ilabeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, and all the other mruniments of English liberty are more firmly fixed in the affections of
the people, and more distinctly recognized and observed by Governmenit, than at any former period. Our Constitution is little more
than the unwritten Constitution of England reduced to writing. It
174