Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet. [volume] (Baton Rouge, La.) 1865-18??, 1865-12-23
Insanity lin the Abstract and In the
! Concrete.


DDS of madness and arrangement,
followed by lucid interregnums Of
the "sober second thought" when
reason reassumes it's sway, and
turns with horror and disgust from
it's consciousness Of weakness aid
establishment, and from the COM
mon wreck of ruin which in an evil
hour it was the means of involving
all within its reach. From Mace
donia's mailman to the Swede,"
and down to the present day, the
calendar Of individual and national
alterations is replete to overflow
ing with instances which mark the
vascillating and alternating phases
of human reason and passion, unfit
ting men at times for self-control or
for the ordinary business and do.
nestle avocations of lie, metamor-
phosing the statesman into the
dawdling politician, impotent for
good yet powerful for evil, and
transforming the soldier into the
fend or petty tyrant.
By these fitful gusts which assail
the throne of reason and the abodes
Of intellect and the soul, the social
and moral fabric is overturned, and
nations, like individuals and commu-
mites, are swept sooner or later in
to vortex of ruin, from which to
be extricated, if extricated at all
only with shattered powers, and ma
lures stepped in Generalization, de-
graduation and crime. Happy the in
dividual or people, who can cope
successfully with the wild tempests
Of passion, bigotry and prejudice,
or who having suffered from Their
shocks, can by moral force rise su-
perior TO their evil effects.
A case in point, by way of illus
tratiDg some Of the positions as.
sumed in the above remarks, occurs
to us here. 1t is related by the New
York Erpress, that during the de
bates in the recent General Cnnven
ton of the Episcopal Church, lately
held in Philadelphia, one of the del
egates, Mr. VIM. Welsh, very ably
and earnestly advocated couciIia-
tory course Of action tow ards
Churchmen in the Southern States,
and took occasion several times to
say "we have all been crazy for the
last three or four years, and have
been as crazy as any one else"
Mr.. Welsh is one of the most emf.
nent merchants in this country, dis
tinguished for his intelligence and
for the good he does with bis great
wealth, and has been very loyal in
support of the Government-but he
he now evidently sees that a major
ity Of the people Of this country
have been laboring under monoma-
MIA for some years past, and, like a
truly good man, as he is, has the
courage and frankness fairly to own
it. 1t has been the opinion of many
rejecting men, that most of the
original Abolitionists were insane;
that some of them were so, can
hardly be doubted. Many cousd-
cred the conduct Of the majority Of
the nation as proof of insanity, and
yet were staggered at admitting
the belief of nation being insane
1t is a remarkable fact that so great. |
a man as Joseph Butler, Bishop Of
Durham, and author of the Analogy, |
entertained the expressed opin-
opinion that whole communities !
might be seized with fits of insanity, !
as well as individuals, and added |
that on no other principle could
certain transactions, recorded in
history, be accounted for.
AN ANCIENT RELiC.-There is in
the Patent office at Washington a
II Il ~ l., ,,o,. &