Belief 4 - Reading 6 of 8, The Reconstruction Convention

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Belief 4 - Reading 6 of 8

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MR. PHILLIPS’S ORATION

Harper's Weekly, November 4, 1865, pages 690-691 (Editorial)

Measured by the great model of Christian character the best of men are sinners. The preacher who describes the divine attributes justly calls all men unclean. But there are still some humble pious souls who struggle on, doing all the good they can, and who are perhaps less deserving of unsparing censure than Judas Iscariot. So compared with the ideal American the actual is sadly imperfect. Measured by the advance s we hope and mean to make our present condition is not the millennium. But meanwhile there is a great body of citizens steadily and faithfully striving to secure fair play for every man as fast as practicable, and who may be charitably pardoned if they feel that some progress has been made.

Yet as we gladly hear the preacher who sends us all to ___, because we know that the good race will be run and won only by those who are spurred up to it, and by constantly holding before our eyes the Christian ideal, so we willingly and gratefully listen to the orator who, as he declares what ought to be done, sneers at those who are busily doing it, as contemptible drones and do-nothings. "Let justice be don," says the orator. Very well, the Union men of the country are securing justice more and more every day. "Securing justice!" retorts the orator, "they are assassinating it. Their President is three-fourths rebel, and there is no such thing as a Union party. There is only a ghastly spectre of that name. Liberty is betrayed."

It is no more true than that the house is burning down because some one sees a thief in the road and cries fire from the window. The cry is meant to rouse the neighborhood and frighten the thief away. And these declarations are but a highly metaphorical way of saying that we must not tire of well-doing, but secure all that the genius of American institutions promises.

It is in this way, after some wincing, that we accepted Mr. Wendell Phillips’s assaults upon President Lincoln, and that we receive no censure of President Johnson. Mr. Phillips spurns every consideration of policy and means. He cries aloud, "Make the path straight!" whether we are making it straight or not, and whether or not we have any tools to use or hands to use them with. His position is that nothing is done while any thing remains to do.

The good service of such a man is unquestionable. We do not agree indeed with his estimate of men and affairs. It seems to us folly to insist that liberty and mankind have gained nothing by the war. But it is not disagreeable to hear an earnest voice declaring that every thing is lost because every thing is not at once gained, for we know that such a voice will keep the victors from sleeping. In this country our law is progress. The rule of progress should be prudence and wisdom. We thank Heaven for the skirmishers, whose shots show us where the battle is to be.

Harper's Weekly, November 4, 1865, pages 690-691 (Editorial)

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