Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-03-13
How it Came About.

In the following passage from a lecture deliv-
cred few days ago by Hon. GEORGE LUNT, oil
Boston, the process is shown by which the judg-
ment of many Northern men has been corrupted
the conscience perverted. and the popular mind
poisoned by deep rooted prejudice toward our fel-
low citizens of the South:
There can be no doubt that a systematic
scheme has been on foot in certain quarters, for
several years past, to ALLEVIATE by every possible
means both parts of the country from each other.
Multtudes, who have been unconscious of the
objects and agencies of this hagitous plan, have
been insensby nveigled into its direct or indirect
support. Journals, lecture-rooms, and other
places claiming even a more sacred mission, have
been made to contribute to the same fatal purpose.
A lecture, in recent days, before miscellaneous
audience, would hardly have been reckoned ac-
ceptable, without some sly inuendo or jeering al
fusion to certain of distant fellow citizens,
and to their usageS and supposed peculiarties of
life and disposition. Literature, which ought to
be universal, has been made the special minister
to local passions and prejudices, even more de
moralizng to ourselves, than uncharitabe and
offensive to Others To very marked degree,
both the school book and the hymn book-the
elementary implement of common education. and
perhaps the most emotional vehicle of religious
feelng-have been used to impress the idel upon
youthful and undiscrimnating minds, that multi
tudes of our countrymen were wilfuly persiSting
in unpalliated wrong toward another race
that those persons were guilty of mortal offense
in the sight of God and man, who maintained in
stitutOns recognized, under the clear necessities
of the case, by the great charter of our liberties,
and fully entitled to, as it had sOlemnly received,
the obedient sanction of national legislation.
The sense of moral accountability, throughout
one half the country, and its equal constitutional
immunities, were both thus impugned. Many
there are l know, who deny all hostility to the
South, of those who most stiffly and ceaselessly
heap upon it the bitterest vituperaton Hostility
to the South Why it is by no means confined to
that quarter alone; but it is wreaked upon those
at the North, too, who are denounced as the
friends OF the South because they are the friends
and supporters of the Constitution. To such
lengths has this sectional sentiment been carried
into practical operation among ourselves, that it
has produced even here the most intoerant, if not
almost ntolerabe political and social distinctions.
Those whose opinions did not accord with the
prevalent idea have been sometimes practically
Ostracised, by large bodies of our citizens. They
have been maligned and nsulted, deprecated,
and sometimes even threatened with summary
retribution. They have appeared at times to have
nothing to depend upon, but their reliance upon
their own integrity, and the good name, which
somehow seems to stand by every man who de
,.
And sometimes it has happened, that those who
were all conspicuous for the preservation of their
own reason, and for their efforts to stem the tide
of fiery zeal for an object totally impracticable
upon its face and in its nature, have found them
selves with n sort of mark set upon them, so that
even their professed friends felt little hesitation
about too familiar intercourse with them. 1t has
never been in many quarters, and especially in
political circles, more than halfway sincere
which is one reason, perhaps, why this prancing
hobby horse of the time has been ridden with
such signal success, by such mastering swarm
of adventurous and INSCRIPTIONS politicians. So
far from being the entire sentiment of the com
muntv, il may be said to have been rather, in a
great degree, their unconscious aetion-but quite
enough so to control society in many important
relations, by the factious elgerness and activity
of its busiest agents. 1t has had prevalence, at
any rate, and influence enough, often to put sta
blty and character aside, and to raise those with
out ability or without character, and perhaps with
out both, to places of distinction and trust. In a
word under the sunlight and the shadow of these
noblest of all Republican institutions, tUhile the
good man of the house has been asleep, the enemy
has been sotcing tares.
In the meantime, it may well be doubted,
whether one man of hundred in New England
ever read the Constitution of his country. And
did time permit me, might proceed to trace
many of the demoralizing influences of the times
to other works, so extensively read by large
classes of men and wOman-wOrks often equally
mischievous and shallow taking away strength
from the mind, instead of rendering support and
nourishme 1t to its better faculties, and too FIRE
quently the vehicles of perncious error, and i'll
enough fitted to make men and woman what
they ought 10 be in this country, or in any
other-and oh, how different from the nobler
classics of our mother literature. perused by
those who read at all, at the fireSides of our
fathers, and which were in general as choice in
merit, as thy were select and few in number l do
not care to pursue this topic further; but such
unquestionably has been the more recent educa
ton of the North, through these and many Other
channels, by no means difficult TO trace. | am
sure that such, and similar causes. have been the
occasion of a vast deal of misapprehension be
tween the South and the North, and without
them no such serious controversy could have
arisen and no such present or future consequences
could be at hand. In the eagerness and alb
sOrption of our business pursuits, and, as the
Pickering flame of our patiotism fast going
down-this, out of the ordinary range of many
of us and quite apart from ourselves has been the
active, and therefore, the external working sen
timent Of our community. Ii did not truly rep
resent the the inner mind of our people; but by
its energy il led multtudes into political and
social errors, who gave it only a cursory thought
and who apprehended from it no danger and nc
evil. The state of sentiment it has prOducee i:
unnatural and unwholesome, but at the same
time superficial, and could not long last The
end of il is, rs might have been expected, tine
civil CONFUSION around US, and, unless we are
equal to the emergency, all that be meant
by the ruin of the country N any event, the fata
sentiment, which is the roof of bitterness, is SURE
to die out. l only earnestly pray it may not be
already too late.