Designs of Radicalism [pp. 532-537]

DESIGNS OF RADICALISM.
The truth, after all, was that the talent and experience of the coulntry was all absorbed by the army, or it remained in private life, and
this will account for all the deficiencies of civil administration. Inthe same private life were not a few in all of the States who might
have served their country to advantage, but retiring from the storm,
exercised a baleful influence by venturing Cassandra prophecies, by
criticising military movements, in which they had not the courage to
take part, and denouncing every measure of tile administration,
whilst they were without the capacity to suggest any better. Such
men did a great deal to secure the ultimate ruin of the cause.
I cannot close without a reference to one name which has so far
escaped me. A venerable man, with long and snowy locks reaching
to his shoulders, asked and obtained the privilege to fire the first gun
in the opening assault upon Sumter, perched upon a cannon. He was
cheered by the soldiers in the great field of Manassas. The theories
and dreams of his life, and of which he had in a prophetic strain discoursed in a volume which appeared long before the war, were being
realized. Southern independence was at hand! The Nestor of the
cause refused to survive its downfall, but, imitating the heroes of
antiquity, died by his own hand. His name was Edmund Ruffin, of
Virginia.
ART. IV.-DESIGNS OF RADICALISM.
MIANY persons seem to think that the only object of the leaders
and managers of the radical party is to retain political power for
the sake of holding the State and Federal offices. This may be
true as to some, yet there is a deeper significance in their movements and plans than is here supposed, as will be attempted to
be shown in the following article:
Parties, as well as men, are to be judged by their actions more
than by their mere declarations. We can ascertain the purposes
of men and find out their motives more by their deeds than by
their words. The whole legislation of Congress for the last two
years, which has been under the guidance and direction of the
New England radicals, shows the deliberate purpose, skillfully
planned, but artfully concealed, of Africanizing the extreme
Southern or Gulf States. This is no new idea with them, but one
of many years standing. Long before the recent war 3Ir. Sumner,
who is the best representative of New England radicalism, declared that their object was to encircle the slave States with a
belt of firee States, in order that "slavery, like a scorpion girt with
fire, might sting itself to death." His policy was to confine the
institution of slavery within its then limits, not permitting it to
go to any of the new States or territories, and at the same time
to make it insecure in the border States, as they were called, by
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