The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1864-05-21
Calhoun and seward.

Amid the thousand civil and martial dig,
nitaries that have figured in America during
the last half century, each of whom has
fondlv imagined himself the main spring of
the Union, two quiet, scholarly statesmen
have best represented the divergiug tenden-
cies of the Republic, and portrayed its his
tory as in prophecy. First of these was
John G. Calhoun, of South Carolina, the
man who held in his brain all the aristo-
cratic ideas of the. present age in their ap-
plica'ion to our own land. He believing
religiously in a government of the few, liz
which laborers should be a mental class and
the gentry the rulers of society. In this he
represented the aspirations of Southern soci.
ETY., and large districts and formidable tend
encies in the North. But he saw that the on
~ path to this order of affairs was civil war
and anarchy. So he preached secession, not
as the final condition of the people, but as
the revolutionary highway to concentrated
power. He has taught that lesson SO we'll
that three years ago the whole aristocratic
class, in South and North, were ready to
precipitste the country into revolution
tehristened "secession"), in order to re-
establish the nation as onsolidated arts
tocracy. The public life of Calhoun was
failure. He had little administrative abil-
ty; but he was the philosophical teacher Of
generation of statesmen and generals-in-
deed, of the leading classes of entire com
monwealths-in the method of accom- plish-
ing the overthrow of the New Republic,
and the establishment of New Europe in
America.
While Calhoun was breathing out bis last
breath at Washington, the new Senator from
New York. William H. Seward, was STAN
mering through his first speech in the Cap
itol on the admission of California into the
Union. That speech contains the peoples
whole answer to the entire programme Of
the dying champion Of Southern aristocra
ey, That hours talk 10 a contemptuous
Senate and a careless people placed Mr..
Seward at the head of the philosophical
statesmen of the New Republic; and his
Tory will set him over against the great
South Carolinian as the mat who soonest
and most completely saw all through and all
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
70 precipitate the country into q tremendous
revolution. He told the naughty men en-
gaSeo Ia tue conspiracy that II they inau-
gurated civil war to establish despotism,
the ruling class of the South and all they
represented would go to the bottom of a
bloody sea. while the people would reach
their final destiny In the establishment of
the New Republic. This idea centralizss
all he has said. thought and done since that
eventful day. His great speeches have
been observations of the progress of that
revolution, as from point overlooking the |
entire field. Like all progressive philosopii- |
ical men. he has counted too enthusiastic. |
ally on the people and often been seemingly
eontradicted By events Like his great op- |
ponent, bis chief success has not been as an |
executive statesman. and he has been dis |
in his personal ambition. Bat
when he is dead. and all be has said and