The star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1849-1866, 1855-11-22

meddlesome, unprncipled men from abroad,
Adm and Faachets and Turssus, snd sym
pathisers afhome. Geaet {fcr Philadeiphia
has the sauck of such expeiments3 iitted oa,
privateefs under the Presidents nose, and
was caught al it, and stopped by firmness
and resolution, without parade, though not
without a struggle. One party at home was
all for France, and the one party against
it. From bad IL vent ON 10 worse--from one
entreme TO anoshef-ffom wisdom to folly
the purest public maa next to Washington,
this couatry had Produced, John Marshall,
was almost expelled with ignominy from
France. Tom Paine became the pet and
and nearly the victim of bloody Ffenchmen.
Foreigners 60: terribly al a discount and al
last, on the 25th of June, 1889, persecution
succeeding provocaiion, John Adams Alien
law was passed, authorizing the President,
at his absolute will, TO order any foreigner
that he pleased, neck and heels out If the
country, and have him put in prison if he did
not go.
The next spasm was of course one OF sym.
Pathy, but the attack was slight Ii was rath-
er sentimental than practical, and did not do
much harm. 1T took the form of admiration
of that eminent Republican and friend of free
institutions, Napoleon Bonaparte IT passed
away very innocently, and left no traces up.
on the national taste and rhetoric, which it
vjtiated sadly. II survives now only on the
pages of Harper's Magazine, or those of Mr
Heafley, or p the memory qfsoms Few Gal
lomaniacs, who think Bonaparte sold us Lou.
siana because he loved us, or that he did a
handsome thing in bequeathing legacy 10
Cantillion.
Next came---for the oscillations one way
or the other never ceased--the fever of sym.
pathy with foreign nations fancying they
knew how TO be free like US, the Greeks--to
whom we sold few dear frigates--and the
Poles-and the whole tribe of Spanish Amer
icans--and in the midst of this, in 1924, came
as If to give US an illustration Of the true rela>
tion which the friendly foreigner should bear
to US and we 10 him, the visit of Lafayette,
the only leading Frenchm an Of his day that
had the least conception of what constitution
al freedom was--a Ffenchman of the Revo.
luton, not besmeared with blood-a public
man whose American career was spolless,
aud of whom, in all his career, here and
away, Am ericans are bound 10 speak kindly.
II angers me TO bear Bonaparlisis, and Bour.
bonists, parasites of kindred despotisms, and
English writers defame our Lafayette. We
are olo enough TO recollect him his frank
and modest tone-his gentle, graceful cour-
tesy, his words OF peace and wisdom; and
we are young enough TO remember the con-
lrast OF another strangers pisnmsge-an in
trusive mendicant, who came 10 see the world
to rights, and US parlicularly-whose bearing
to us, his silly hosts, was one vas: condescen-
sion.
am now coming-for there is a regular
law in this movement--so near to our own
days and their living actors, tha, am admon-
ished TO be cautious in what say. There
may be within sound of my voice Repealers
of 1874, Or Iconoclasts of 1874, or Kos.
suih enthusiasts of 1851, for so has
swung the pendulum in those days, and /
should be sorry te revive here any sorrowful
nemery of temporary inssnity. therefore
pass them and later gusts of transient feeling
by, with but one remark, that at the bottom
of many of them, there is often a generous
sentiment of sympathy, either with the en-.
slaved abroad, or with some domestic i'm.
pulse that exempts them from too harsh cen.
sure. et
And on all the Sc mutations of feeling, MI.
President, and gentleman, History looks
calmly down and records her sure juds ment,
and tha: judgment is, that all such follies are
very transient, and that as 10 foreign men,
and foreign things, and foreign principles,
there should be neither sympathy, nor anti
palhy, but strict, resolute neutrality-neu-
traliiy of the heart--the netrality which is
consistent with kind and generous feelings,
which gives ready welcome to the stranger
who comes, but couples with tha. welcome
the reseluie admonition that IN. becoming
one of US in form, he must be one of US in
feeling. Such stranger Lafayette was, and
happy would it have been for him had he
never left the land that long ago welcomed
him. He would have been spared many an
hour of bitter anguish. He would have been
spared The orgies Of Versailles and the herri-
ble fear that in his sight and trusting to his
word of honor, brave woman ran the risk
of being murdered-he would have been
spared the agony of watching the ghastly
antics of revolutionary France-of apparent
treason to his couniry-he would have been
spared 0lmu:z-and 1915, when one CLEAN
of liberty was darkened by the Bouibons,
and most of oil, 1880, when fort last time
in his day, liberty was cheated. Here, his
home would have been happy. Here his
grave would have been honored, and not
be, as il now is, save by some accidental
way.farers, forgotten or scosned. There was
something very picturesque and impressive,
few months ago, when the Queen of Eng.
land stood under the great dome of the In-
valides at Napoleon's tomb. The figures of
the living and the dead were sublime ia The
worlds eye. II was the musing of one sorl
of royalty, traditionaty, historical, decorous
royalty, over another in It's brief day quite |
as imposing, bloody, tyranous, energetic, inn
perial royalty. But it had no higher moral
grandeur, than when the American traveller,
swayed by honest reverence for the Revolu. |