The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-08-01

The Fourth Of July oration before the au-
thorities of Boston, was this year delivered by
DR.. 0. W. Holmes. 1t was very able. We
make few extracts
CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE.
The struggle in which we are engaged was
inevitable it mig have come a little sooner
or little later, but it must have come The
disease Of the nation was organic and not
functional, and the rough ehirurgery of war
was its only remedy.
In opposition to this view there are many
languld thinkers, who lapse into forlorn be.
lief that if this or that man had never lived
or if this or that man had not ceased to live,
the country might have gone on in peace and
prosperity, till its felicity merged in the glo-
ries Of millennium. IF Mr. Calhoun had never
proclaimed his heresies if Mr.. Garrison had
never published his paper; if Mr.. Phillips,
the Cassandra in masculine shape of our long
prosperous Hum, had never uttered his melo-
dious prophecies if the silver tones of Mr..
Clay had still sounded in the Senate chamber
to smooth the pillows of contention if the
OIympian brow Of Daniel Webster had been
lifted from the dust to fix its awful frown on
the darkening scowl Of rebellion we might
have been spared this dread season of convul-
sion. All this is but simple Marha's faith,
without the reason she could have given " If
thou hadst been here, my brother had not
died"
They little know the tidal movements of
national thought and feeling who believe that
they depend for existence on few swimmers
who ride their waves 1t is not IIeviathan
that leads the ocean from continent to CONT.
nent, but the ocean which bears his mighty
bulk as 1t waits it own bubbles. If this is
true of all the narrowing manifestations of
human progress, how much more must it be
true OF those broad movements in the intel
lectual and spiritual domain which interest
all mankind
The antagonism of the two sections of the
Union was not the work of this or that enthu-
sast or fanatic. 1t was the consequence of a
movement IN mass of two different forms of
civilization in different directions, and the men
to whom 1t was attributed were only those
who represented it most completely, or who
talked longest and loudest about it. Long be-
tore the accents OF those famous statesmen re-.
1erred to ever resounded in the halls of the
Capitol long before the Liberator ever opened
Its batteries, the controversy now working it.
self out by trial of battle, was foreseen and
predicted. Washington warned his country.
men OF the danger of sectional divisions, we'll
knowing the line of cleavage that ran through
the seemingly solid fabric. Jefferson fore
shadowed the judgment to fall upon the land
tor its sin against a just God. Andrew Jack.
son announced quarter of century ago
that the next pretext of revolution would
be slavery. De ~ocquevile recognized, with
that penetrating insight which anayzed our
institutions and conditions so keenly, that the
Union was to be endangered by slavery, not
through its interests, but through the change
of character it was bringing about in the peo.
pie OF the two sections the same fatal change
which George Mason, more than half cen.
tury before, had declared to be the most per-
niclous effect of the system, adding the solemn
warning, now fearfully justifying itself in the
sight Of his descendants; and, by an inevita-
Die chain of causes and effects, Providence
Furnishes national sins by national calamities." /"
The Virgnian romaucer pictured the far-off
scenes OF the conflict which he saw approach
ing as the prophets of Israel painted the CON-
ing woes of Jerusalem and the strong icono-
lcust of Boston announced the very year when
the cartain. should rise on the yet unopened
drama. $3.50 a "a -