Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1863-10-21
Men of Ideas.

The Rev. A. d. Mayo, in q recent Adj
dress before the Union Literary Society
of Antioch College (Ohio) on The Schol-
ar's Vocation IN the New Republic" thus
sketches the Two American statesmen
whose conflicting ideas he deems the
handspring of our present gigantic con-
vulsion:
Amid the thousand civil and martial
dignitaries that have figured in America
during thelast half century, each of whom
has fondly imagined himself the main
spring of the Union, two quiet, scholarly
statesmen have best represented the dl-
verging tendencies of the Republic, and
portray ed its history as in prophesy. First
of these was John q. Calhoun of South
Carolina, the man who held in his brain
all the aristocratic ideas of the age, in
their application to our own land. He be-
lieved religiously in Government of the
few, in which the labOrers should be Il
mental class, and the gentry the rulers OF
society. In this, he represented the as
pirations of Southern society, and of large
districts and formidable tendencies in the
North. But he saw that the only path to
this order of affairs was civil war and an
archy. SO he preached Secession, not as tie
final condition Of the people, but as the revnta-
tiondry highIcdy TO concentrated polosr. He
has taught that lesson so well that two
years ago the whole aristocratic class,
South and North, were ready to precipi-
tate the country into revolution (christen-
ed 'Secession'), in order to re-establish
the nation as a consolidated aristocracy.
The public life of Calhoun was failure
He had little administrative ability; but
lie was the philosophical teacher of gen
Grafton of statesmen and generals, indeed
of the leading classes of entire Common
wealths, in the method of accomplishing
the overthrow of the New England Re
public, and the establishment of a New
Europe in America.
While Calhoun was breathing out his
last breath at Washington, the new Sena-
tor from New York, William II. Seward
was stammering through his first speech
in the Capitol. on the admission OF Cali
fornia to the Union. That speech eoHtains
the peoples whole dHS11er 10 the entire pro
gramHe Of The dying champion of Southern ar
istoeraey. That hours talk to a contempt
uous Senate and careless people placed
Mr.. Seward at the head of the philOsoph-
ical statesmen of the New Republic, and
history will set him over against the great
South Carolinian, as the man who soonest
and most completely saw all through and
around his elaborate scheme of American
despotism, and predicted its downfall at
the moment of its apparent triumph
Mr.. Seward saw then that Secession was
aiming to precipitate the country into
tremendous revolution. He told the
naughty men engaged in the conspiracy
that if they inaugurated civil war TO es-
tablish despotism, the ruling class of the
South, and all they represented, would 90
TO the bottom of a bloody sea, while the
people would reach their final destany in
the establishment of the New Republic.
This idea centralizes all he has said,
thought, and done since that eventful
day. His great speeches have been OBJ
seFvations of the progress of that revolu-
ton, as from point overlooking the en-
tire field. Like all progressive philosoph-
ical men, he has counted too enthusias-
tically on the people. and often been
seemingly contradicted by events. Like
his great opponent, his chief success has
not been as an executive statesman, and
he has been disappointed in his personal
ambition. But when he is dead, and all
he said and wrote, and thought about
American affairs, shall be gathered up in
to one consistent whole, it will be known
how capacious was that range of vision
that took in the whole past, present and
future of the Republic; and how strong
was that faith in man, which in the very
turmoil of civil war could cheerfully
prophesy the complete success of those
great ideas and institutions, on which the
Union will rise to the foremost rank
among the nations of the earth. "