New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-07-23
SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS.

days, while the fresh breeze futters at the
shaded window, it does not need the sug-
gestions of Hawthorne's new romance to
recall to memory and revive that spirit OF
chivalrous youth and aspiration which
would fain reconstruct the fabric of socie-
ty upon freer and fairer idea than the
mass of the world have ever yet attained.
For while nature thus smiles in beauty,
and the fields beyond, following for the
harvest, TEEN with the prodigalities of her
bounty, this summer dream of so many no
bic and ingenious hearts shines forth in
its essential truth, and skepticism and the
rust of shrewd experience are alike impo-
tent to obscure it. 1t is dream now, but
we see that one day it will be fact.
1t is a consolation, as poor perhaps as it
is cheap, which whispers to the defeated
as they sadly turn from the battle field,
that hereafter they or their successors will
retrieve the fortune of the struggle and
gain more than they have now lost; but it
is consolation to which none have better
right than those who fail in the attempt to
establish justice and equality among men.
For they are sure of this at least, that the
convictions they have served will not die
out, and that, with or without teachers,
descending from age to age, transplanted
from soul to soul, the aspiration will be re-
vived and the effort repeated. The Re-
public of Plato, Campanella's City Of the
Sun, the Utopia of Thomas More, the
Community of Robert Owen, the Pha-
lanstery of Fourier, and all the thousand
forms in which men of genius and of heart
have embodied their loftiest ideal of life,
are monuments of this aspiration. They
show that it springs spontaneously in the
mind of The thinker and the poet; while
poor and humble men, untutored peasants,
bowed with exhausting labor and heavy
taxes, catching this hope from natural
sense of right, or from the Gospel that
announces the Kingdom of Heaven on
earth, with it startle the gloom and
defy the expressions of the middle ages in
Germany or, clad in blouses and waving
red flags, fanatically shout it, desperate
and awful war. cry, from the barbados of
modern Paris. Prudence smiles sneeringly
at the fancies of the theorists, and grape
and musket shot NOW down their dam
gerous and untimely champions and
the next despotism wipes away the mot
to of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity that
an ardent impulse had just before inaugu-
rated as the fundamental principle Of a ma
ton. But there are things so instinct with
eternal vitality that contempt and death
and worlds forgetfulness are powerless
against them. Such are the ideas of Social
Justice, Human Brotherhood, of Universal
Liberty, and of noble life for ell men on
earth. These survive all failures and out
live all ridicule. They rise immortal from
ali graves and issue chainless from all dun
geons. Where there is freedom they walk
in peace with the steady march Of industry,
Of invention, and of abundance. Where
despotism strengthens its power and levies
its tribute, they prompt to agitation, and to
resistance, without end and often without
mercy. Long and desperately struggling,
they may be beaten, and potentates and
statesmen may fancy they are extinguish-
ed forever. But when the repose is deep
est and the stagnation most lifeless, and
traitors to Man revel in the utmost security,
than, without an instant warning, the cur
tain rises and the drama begins again, with
continent for its stage, nations for actors,
destiny to shift the scenes, and flames of
cities and blaze of battles for illumination :
For though many men refuse to learn the
lesson of history, the truth still remains
patent to all but the self deluded that the
original force in human nature cannot be
put down or long outwitted. Every nation
not kept in artificial poverty and weakness,
which is the true road to national EXITING
tion,-a fact of which Mexico is now an
eminent example,-will have either free
progress or violent revolution. There is
no third alteT alive. DespOtism must either
destroy all life, or it prepares its own de-
struetion. What is wrong and unjust may
endure for a season, but unless it serve as
the precursor of something better, it ends
in calamity. Slavery is good when it con-
ducts to q more secure and substantial
freedom, but full OF danger when its end
is merely the continuance and strengthen
ing of slavery. Nicholas of Russia, wise