Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-07-23
COOPERATIVE FANATICIsMs.

from which we made cOpious citations few days
ago. the speaker, while ascertaining the character
and enforcing the duties of educated and patriotic
men at this juncture referred to class of persons
who pervert and abuse the gifts of cultivated un-
derstanding by demonstrating, in their words and
their conduct, that if knowledge is always power
it is not always virtue In the case, however, Of
even such persons he is charitable enough to sug-
gest thai it is not always necessary to suppose de-
liberate and purposed wrong on their part 1t may
be, he says, ga strong constitutional propensity"
which drives such men to find their motives of ac-
tivity in the pleasure Of venting their spleen and
of making sensation. Representatives Of this
unfortunate class, he adds are found every where,
at least in all free communities; men who are
cursed with passion to be forever meddliDg,
forever before the public; with whom, therefore,
it is as natural to be Missionaries and disorganzers
as to breathe. They may be educated or not !;
when educated, however, nobody would think to
account for their conduct by saying it was be-
cause of their education it would be much more
reasonable to say it was in spite of it"
The Insurgent States have for many years been
afflicted with tribe of such " Missionaries and dis
organizers " Whether taking for their thesis the
relations of men in society or in the State, they
have propounded doctrines the most crude and per
nicious Seeking to establish the proposition that
there could be no weregulated social system with
out the institute of slavery, they vanly strove to
erect the exceptional into the normal, and the
transitory into the eternal Sspping the founda
tons of civil order that they might build on the
ruins Of the Constitution and Union new polity,
they INDUCED in the propsgandism of ideas at once
the most revolutionary and illogical. The result of
their teachings is before us in the dissolution Of
social ties, the confusion of political subordinaioD
and the destruction throughout wide areas in the
South Of all that makes life not only happy, but
desirable. The demsgogues long sowed to the
wind, and the people, who lent to them credent
ears, are now reaping the whirlwind
The North, too, has long been afflicted with its
peculiar class of " Missionaries and dsorganizers"
men who have preached the evangel of liberty,
not in love to the slave, but in bate for his master
By them the covenants of the fathers have been cast
ont and trampled under foot. Invective has been
with such men their favorite if not their only dia-
lect. And to-day, amid the blazing fires which
they have aided to kindle, they are found gorying
all true lovers of their country.
We reproduce IN another place 'ietter from
that genuine philanthropist and tried patriot,
THURLOw WEED, in comment on the execrable
barbarities of the late mob in New York city,
especially as manifested in the heart-rendng cru
elites inflicted on harmless and helpless negroes.
No humane mind can contemplate such exhibitions
Of depravity without horror at the strange perver
sity of human nature from which they spring.
They argue the presence of moral gangrene in
the community which breeds such disorders, and
the symptoms Of the disease call for study and re-
Fiction. We believe that Mr.. Weed rightly
ascertains and divides the responsibility for that
Inflammation of the public mind which has led to
such feverish eruptions Of crime the part of the
unthinking multitude in New York. The causes
which superinducc any political or popular devel-
opment are always complex in their nature 1t is
only ignorance or prejudice which sees in such
explosions of violence as recently convulsed q
great city like New York nothing more than the
presence of a single element of disafection.
W CAOVCA VIC mdiA VIC SuShNcScCuoO VI huihon
passions we are sure to find that it has been pre-
ceded by the commingling Of diverse sentiments
thrown into the seething caldron of public debate
The features presented by the late riot in New
York sufficiently reveal its paternity. The deeds
of blood and rapinc and outrage visited upon the
heads of inofensive negroes were the offspring not
only of native depravty the part of the rioters
but were begotten by the promiscuous union Of
two equally deplorable fanaticsms-onc of which
panders to the sentiment of caste by seeking to
intensity the vulgar prejudice against despiscd
race and the other Of which makes the welfare and
elevation Of this race the be-all and cnd-all Of
its political activity and social aspiration. Tho
well-balanced mind seeks to shun each Of these
extremes, because they arc the natural compile
ments Of each other in generating an antagonism
which ID injurious to the cause Of social ameliora
tion even where il is not preudcial to the security
Of the State. True philanthropy socks the elcva-
ton Of oil men, but not by the methods of those
who "inAame and cxasperatc the ignorant and
lawless against the negro" or Of those whose
words and whose demcanor serve to show that
they are Missionaries and disorganizers," more
intent on "ventng their spleen and making a
sen,atoy,u than in dining good In their fallo~ ,nor