The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1866-03-17
Conservatism and RadicaliSm

From the speech of Senator Wilson, of
Mass, on the Constitutional Amendment,
delivered in the U. S. Senate, March sth -
"Politicians and presses hippanfly charac-
terized nine-tenths of the men who had plac-
ed the present Administration in power as
radicals For thirty years there had been
class OF men who had instinctively clung to
every lingering wrong, and walled over every
rotten institution as it fell. Had those po-
, lilical Bourbons yet to learn that for the past
thirty years the patriotism, freedom, justice,
humanity and progressive development ofthe
republic had been represented by the 'rad-
GALS? Had they forgotten that for thirty years,
on every issue before the country, the radicals
had been indicated by events, and by the
verdict of history? Surely, they could not
have forgotten The glorious fact that the rad
icals never plotted treason, never betrayed
the cause of freedom, nor fired upon the flag
of their country.
Had these conservatives forgotten, what
the world will ever remember, that the
crimes against country, liberty, justice and
humanity that had marked the past thirty
years were committed in the name of con-
servatsm? Conservatives trampled down
the sacred right of petition and the freedom
of speech; arraigned before the bar Of the
House the ilustrous Adams and censurcd
the fearless Giddings; manaccd colored
scnmcn on the decks of Massachusetts ship
in the harbor of Charleston and drove Samuel
Eioar from South Carolina; annexed Texas
to make slavery perpetual and opposed the
admission of free California: rejected the
prohibition of slavery in Utah and New Mex
leo, and enacted the fugitive slave law
repealed The prohibition of slavery in Kansas
seized the ballot-boXes by lawlcss violence :;
enacted slave codes murdered free State
settlers and framed LecomptOr constitutions
struck down a Senator on the floor of the
Senate, and fired upon the flag covering
bread for starving soldiers; organized treason,
and plunged the country into civil war
banded together as Knights Of the Golden
circle, and fired orphan asylumS in tAc city
vi w" l YIN SlitlNSd IlIH'Etin VI wal al
AnderSonvile, and plotted the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln. Every crime for "A
generation against liberty and the rights of
man in America had been committed by men
who pratcd of their conservatism and de-
nounced the advocates of country, freedom
Justice and humanity as reckless agitators
and radicals. During the past generation,
in all the struggles for country, for the rights
Of man, for justice and humanity, the de
bounced and branded radicals, moving in
harmony with the internal forces Of nature
and God, had achieved glorious victories and
won enduring triumphs.
While timid conservatism ever inglorouSly
retrcatcd from one lost battle for old abuses
to an other radicalism met every demand of
slavery, oftreason, ofiriastice, with prompt
and emphatic No and moved right on to
assured victories victories that history
would record, and coming generations re-
member. In the struggle Of the present
where there was wrong to be rightcd or a
grievance to be redresscd, conservative
presses and conservative politicians would
find that the radicals would 90 into the con
tests with the light of past victories on their
faces.