Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1854-07-14
John NIitcheil's Address.

John Mitchell, the Irish Patriot, delivered an ad
dress on Thursday last, before the Washington and
Jefferson Societies of the University of Virginia. II
is distinguished alike by that genteman's usual i'm
passioned and fecitOus eloquence and bold original
and somewhat singular thought The subject was
g True Civii2ation and the means Of attaining it,
The can't about material progress of the present day.
receives hard criticism at his hand.
The highest Civilization in the world means SIM
pie Justice; yet, if you ask the first len men you may
casually meet in railroad car, what they mean by
the Civilization they talk of, (for almost everybody
talks of it and congratulates himself and his neigh
bors upon iD nine of them will tell you that it is
seam that it is electricity, that it is printing press
that is carpets and upholstery that it is gunpowder
gas. One man, profounder than the rest, will per-
haps answer that it is commerce-infnite imports,
unbounded exports and unheard ofcarrying trade;
world embracing commerce that brings distant ma
tions near, making them family of mutually help.
full brethern. Such is the current talk.
Now, it is not altogether clear that discoveries in
art and science, how widely so ever applied and
made subservent to mems convenience, are any real
Improvement demonstrate any real progress towards
anything good Civilization or so much as in
sruments furtherances of Civilization The prin-
ting press the electric wire is material vehicle
of thought of wisdom, of nonsense or of vice. as the
case may be If man tells lie to one end Of a
wire, it will not come truth at the other end. The
railroad carries very quickly upon their business
such it is, be their erands good evil, be their
ments of houses and carriages, are indeed splendid
garnure of life, if men do not forget the way to live
the while. AS for what is called commerce, certain
ly there is nothing intrnsically base or evil in trade
and traffic, yet it may be said with at least equal
truth, that there is nothing elevatng, refining pu-
rifying in it. " AS nail" saith the son of Sirach,
stckeh fast between the of stones, so doth
sin stick fast between buying and selling.' How
ever, that be, certain it is that there is no more
ruthless tyrant on earth than the true commercial
spirit; and the presen, age has human be.
lngs slain in nation, for the sake of COM
merce in three years, than any thirty years war ever
slew-more mserably and ANONYMOUSLY slain, than
war at its worst and wckedest could ever slay
The every day sentimental cant about universal
benevolence and peace-the peace of trade and com
merce and Crystal Palacedom meets with little mer-
cy of the hands of the Irish patriot.
Not peace, but war has called forth the grandest
finest, tenderest, most generous qualities of manhood
and of womanhood. What made America, and breath
ed into her nostrls fiery life War. And oh
Heaven what unmade Ireland, and brought her into
the pit OF debasement where she hes now 7! Peace
patience and perseverance under insoent oppression
and the very jaws of national death.
According to Mr.. Mitchell the fierce hostility 10
the growth and power Of Russia, now so popular, is
i'll Judged and wrong. Russia is our great Coadju-
tor In true civilization.
OfaIl the peope and tribes, and tongues, and ma.
lions exant, there are two-one in the East
Russia one in the West; America-on whom has
devolved all, believe, the task of carrying the
main concerns of the world. in these our days-the
task of taking order, not for the regeneration, but
for the conservation of the human race.
Placed, physically, in two hemispheres-p placed
morally at Two opposite poles of thought in two sep
arae centres of action those two nations appear tc
me, (now that Asia is dead, and Africa unborn, and
Western Europe in the agones almost with the death
rattle IN her throat-those two young nations seem
to be set each in its place, each with it's work
do, each its problem to solve at it's proper
peril The main difference is that Americans will
themselves work out their experiment; the Russians
will have theirs worked Out upon them, and for them
These two nations now, in the only proper sense
of that term, the civilized and cviIizing nations o.
the globe.