Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1866-05-11
"a STATESMAN wANrEp.,,

- = n T. aN W AN j EDs1'
a popular andwidely disseminated misap-
prehenslon fixes the Golden AGE ofthe HUI
man Race IN the dim obscurity Of hieh an
tiquity People turn, almost as BY instinct.
to the Past, and bow reverentIv to impala
bic shadows, believing them to be veritable
gI&nts, not only in physical stature, but in
intellectual endowments and the graces Of
moral perfection. Critical explorations dis
pei these illusions. The present ace is,
IN every particular, the best and wisest the
sun ever shone upon. As the careful histo-
rlan travels back into the Past, he feels he
IS recedlng into mental and moral darkness,
until at last he finds himself surrounded by
gorgons and chimeras dire
It's part and parcel of this fallacy which
leads many men III this country to look back
to the era Of the Revolution as furnishing
the highest known examples of patriotic
devotion, of sagacious stasesmanship, of le-
gal erudltion, and Of transparent unselfish-
ness, Nothing serves better to correct
these erroneous estimates than to go back
to the old documents and newspapers and
learn how these men estimated each other
Jefferson while holding the highest
place In the Cabinet of Washington, allow.
ed himself to speak and write of that Pres
ldent with more freedom and severity than
Wade Or Sterens have exercised towards the
President. His determinations of Wash
lngton, though not precisely Of the same
kind, were as fierce as any the radicals have
INDUCED towards the present incumbent of
the presidential chair. Nor did Jefferson
get off on easier terms. He was accused of
almost everything except being christian
and a decent man Franklin shared the
same fate and, indeed, if any body will
take the pains to look over the manuscripts
in the Franklin Library in Philadelphia, he
viii doubtless be convinced that however
colossal and beauteous the figure of the re-
n0Wned philosopher may have been, it was
part clay as well as part gold. Nor are
these exceptional cases. The men of l776,
as body, were neither Wisernor truer than
the men of 1866. The statesman who pi-
loted the United States through the perils
of the rebellion, surmounting dangers at
home and avoiding difficulties abroad, are
the peers Of any equal number ever vouch-
sated to any nation, in one era, in the whole
tide of time. The Generals who led the
armies Of the Union, if possibl surpassed
by three or four grand and solitary exam
pies, standing as monuments along the
shores Of history, are not overtopped, if
equalled by any cluster Of heroes adorning
any age or country. Even these immortal
ieutenants who gave lustre to the camp and
court of the great Napoleon are here over
matched. Only great people could breed
such men. And hence that marvellous
spectacle, at which the world stood aston
ished when the loyal people of the United
States, unheeding all the suggestions of IL
midity, all the counsels of selfshness, all the
promptings of narrow prudence, laid their
properties and their bodies on the altar of
sacrifice.
That each Of the members Of the present
Congress is pre-eminent for wisdom, and
patriotism, no one pretends. But that de-
Lucrative assemblies, of equal numbers, in
any country or age, ever combined more Of
those qualities, we do not believe. When
the passions engendered by present conflicts
shall have passed away; ; when all false
weights shall have been excluded from the
scales on which events now current must be
weighed when the questions which now
agitate and divide our people shall have re
ceived the Judgment Of posterity the pres
ent Congress will be ranked chief Of the il
lustrious assemblies that have conserved
order, helped progress, and resisted an in
flow Of the swelling tide of old abuses
1t is easy to be captious. 1t is not diff
cult for presumptuous men, who have no
knowledge of what craftsmanship consists
in and who comprehend not at all how the
destinies of great nations areslowly and la
boriously extricated from impending perils
and modelled into conformity to Truth and
Justice, to impugn and heap contRmelies on
the profoundest wisdom. Hence it has hap
pened that not an individual name, nor the
the name of collective body, stands to.
day. in the annals of the human race, en-
blazoned with the peculiar lustre, and hon
ored with the worship Of grateful millions
but was long blackened and DETAINED By
conservative malice and stupidity. Pits
J,agh Gazette