The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1855-06-01


! Ii is surprising 10 see for how many years
mankind has been shroud-d in ignorance. It
/ is more than surprising 10 know, as we do at
last, that all the greatest efforts OF human intel
/ irct have been devoted TO the Illustration ol
dangerous or ridiculous theories, and that what
our poets have sung and orr orators celebrated
/ have been miscalled virtues. in the spirit oi
I insane inlatuatinn. A our history must be
rewritten. The dead past must be set forth IN
other lights and shades. Philosophy itself is
proved to be- fable. Deeds that have been
+ honored must be reviewed by a new standard
and corrected hy new example Men that
are still regarded as benetactors TO their race
must be pushed from their pedestals, and the
-wh0ie structure at society, politics, and morals
reconstructed and rebuilt IRON what we have
been foolish enough TO regard as IFS enduring
/ foundations. in a word, we have fallen upon
new tines. New mcn have originated new
ideas; and We must incontnently adapt our
srlytS to these IDEAS or be swrp; into perdiion.
The mistakes We have fallen into are al once
proof OF our own intellectual weakness and Of
our moral degradation,
Let Us take the Untpd States as the theatre
upon which most Of these mistakes have hap
pen4d, and where they have been most resoluls-
" perSpyered in
1t was great mistake for the prosecuted peo-
pie of the Old World to indulge the idea that
they could escape the pans and penalties oi a
State systeni Of religious prrsrcutIon hy coming
hither. IT is true thev found here new coun-
try and a native population, but the idea that
that country conld successfully resist the pro-
scrptire example Of the tyrants OF Europe was
dream like that which filled the minds Of the
early Adventures, vino looked npon this hem
isphere as land whose strains were amber and
whose sands We're gold. What right had they to
expect that such land would be- reserved to
them or their deScendanis2 What reason had
they 10 suppose that others would not come al
ter them, with the sword and the brand, the
torture and the stake?
1t IS mistake, also, TO suppose that the for
egners who assisted lis in the revolution have
not been fully raid of for their servicrs-yes,
paid off and discharged 1t would bp a greater
mistake, if possible, TO suppose that these mrn
fought for anything but pay. Their whole ad-
venture proves to be shrewd speculation :;
while we, who have been booking upon them as
50 many heroes and gods, must revise our rev
erential emotions, and rate them as the merest
soldiers Of fortune.
1t is grand mistake to suppose that George
Washington had any regard for the foreigners
who fought in the revolution. On the contra
ry, as recent researches prove, he was all the
time their secret enemy. The letterSandspetch-
Is which have been reading as his and APP
proving because they were his, are. doubtless,
wfetched forgrrieS. 1t is important that, in
adopting the new version Of his character and
his sentiments, We should also correct our adj
mratlon for Lafayette ard his foreign compa-
trlots, because il is now clear enough that Wash
ngton had little or no respect for them,
il is also most grevous mistake TO suppose
that there was any such thing religions toIer-
alton in the creed of our revolutionary ancestors.
Our old-iaShoned notions Of Roger Williams,
William Penn, and George Calvert, must be
thrown of as many worn-outclothes Will
Jams was miserable old fanatic Penn, trader
in lands and in Indian goods and Lord BaIti-
more, rantne Catholic, whose violence and
bigotry were only excefled by that other impos-
tor, Charles Carroll Of Carrollion.
Such are few of the popular errors which
the new party is about to set in a proper light
before the world. The age in which we live
is an age Treason and of reform-of new man
ners and new men. And all of Us that have
souls to be saved must bow down to the teach
ings of the oracles that have risen among us to
set this crooked world straight Our condition
will be peculiar after the reform is complete
But if we discard such foreign works as the
Bible, as Milton, as Shakspeare--f we throw
aside all respect for Magma Chara with its
machinery ofhdbeas corpvS. trial by inrv, &c.
If we establish quarantine beyond which Moth
ing shall come that is not purely American,
whether of men or thinrs-at least we shall
have a happier Arcadia than that ofold. What
need oil the Anticipated authors we have named,
when we can preserve the recollections and
the writings Of Mrs. Stowe, Miss Bunkley, and