Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1846-06-27

Shi'"h'hs Who. 50 tneN rue, care NOT
which way they 60, we are charmed
to.see how fast the hedges and houses
dance by as; we clap our hands, laugh
dcligh'edly 10 see how we keep NOV
ing, and take it for granted that what
goes so fast needs must go equally
well.
But. let us cnnsider. Nations that
hive shot up with an amazing rapid
ty of rise have usually fallen against
rapidly just as the boy that was six
feet high At ten years old, died in COM
pleie decrcpitude al twenty. We are
monsters, marvels of boyish manhood;
but such wonders are always portcn-
tous. to themselves. if to nothing else.
A State may outgrow the very prin-
ciple of life in tive mean its institu-
tions-and this is what we are doing.
Like the gigantic child of which we
have just spoken, its body may vastly
outsirip its mind, and its strength, its
prudence: it may arrive at the age Of
corporal passions, while the faculties
that should control them are yet in
their infancy; and its erroneous pow
ers, Unmatched with any thing that
should direct them, may be its bane, as
much as they were human wonder.
For what can be truerer than those
words which Milton puts in the mouth
of Samson, when all his might has
failed him and been overcome by lit
tie craf1
10, impotence of mind, in body strong!
Bot wha, is strength without a double share
Of wisdoml Vast, oowieldy. burdensome,
Proudly secure, ye, liable to fall
BY weakest sublie,ies not made TO rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears com.
mand'
God hath not given genuine and n
lasting greatness TO be so built up. 1t
is painful, SLOW, the structure of "A
mighty toll and patience, the calm and
sober growth of cenluri $, tile work OF
men .magnanimous, solid and sedate,
rejoicing in no airy suddenness, conf
dent in no creations of the moment.
Such are in haste to rear no piles faster
Than they1csn settle themselvcs--no
Babels of unbakcd bricks, that will be
crushed with their own height. A
great State, in word, cannot spring
up, like an exhalalon, in morning:
for, built TO endure, it must be built
slowly, and of materials not onl y adj
mirably put together, but capable to
Withstand all but the slowcst change.
How different all that the votarie, Of
the progress" cxuIt in! How total
ly unlike this new process Of great
ness TO the old! 1t is no long "a
mighty race of men, virtuous, brave,
law-loving, animated as with a single
great soul, and crownng with high
and consistent public policy the we'll
sustained order Of every private duty:
il is the machines, not the men, that
are now to make US great and an
everlasting people. So saith that
mighty designer of empires. the Pro-
gress. We have no plan. no purpose.
no counsel, no course: spared all trouble
of that sort, we have only to commit
ourselves TO the blind and headlong
wave Of the 'onward,' and its rush is
to be our guide, our prudence, our
very Providence! Nay, the faster
down il we drift the more glorious our
progress; for though no man can tell
where we arc going are we not get
ting along somewhitherward at a great
rate? Yea, to more and more swift
dis .oluton Of all policy, of all civil
order, Of every thing that can make
social life safe or sweet. This is the
E" progress" The corruptions of the
Government, its neglect of its just
functions, not 10 say its wilful non-per-
Torrance Of them, deepen every day,
and with them the glsdness Of the pop
ular endurance of misrule which sat
i.fes the people because it consults
only their passions. We border all
the while upon civil war, in the injuries
which party inHcts upon party; all the
bonis of life and almost that Of coun-
try are broken; and this is called "the .
In sixty years, under our
we have been unable TO
settle whether or not the Government
can exercise any of those greater and
more benefcent powers with which
i set out: and this is an amazing rate I.
IF "progrcss." Meanwhile, if the
power OF protecting industry and arts,
md many more such, cannot be ascer-
aimed, there is no difficulty, as we have
,een on various occasions within the
ast twenty years, In the rcigning
I,..:Ja..s. .o;,;n,, an al ,,tthlic truSfs