Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-03-08
Gblo Statesrrrarr,
New England TranscendentaIiSm.
. .... LECTURE OF
HON. SAM UEL S. COX,
At the e street baptist Church,
Washington City, on the Evening
OF February 10, 1896, Before an
Immense Audience.

| Immense Audience.
Mr.. Cox began his lecture by hoping
that any division of opinion as to the mat
ter of the lecture would be tolerated. as the
discussion of his theme would involve mat
tiers connected with social and political
ethics. The lecturer rejoiced to know that
the idiosnycrasies and insanties of New
England had received check to-day by
the veto of the President! The ideoogies
of New England at last were called to halt !!
Thank God! we now have an opportunity
| to record the honest sentiments of the peo-
pie with reference to the intolerance, bigot-
ry, and uncharitableness of New En-
gland.
Mr.. Cox said: My subject is hard to de-
fine. In metaphysics transcendentalism is
applied to ideas beyond experience. Its
origin is older than the dreamers of Ger
many, or the subtle intellects of New En-
gland. 1t isas old as Aristotle, who defined
it as embracing everything not in his ten
categories. Kant adopted this definitiOn,and
from 10 grOtesque pipe pulled out his in
ner ideas, through which objects were
only pictured as phenomena. Mingling
with the imagery of his fancy, these ideal
isms left the spectator more in the exercise
Ol Ills WOuuGT Jlldl VI Ills we
are reminded by them of the three broth
torch and jumped down Kagi's throat;
Kagi took a torch and jumped down Magi's
throat; and Magi jumped down his own
throat, leaving the spectators entirely in
the dark. This is to be transcendental.
Laughter.
Mr.. Cox referred to the New England
mutual admirationists, who pleased them
selves with thinking they understood this
jargon. He gave some ludicrOus definitions
of his subject. Its disciples were intellec-
tual acrobats; useless, though agile. He
gave a sketch of Carlyle, Emerson, &C.,
their copyists, disciples, paradoxes, and
style. They lacked humility, docility,
and religion. Horace Mann, one of the
sect, charged the orthodox New England
mind with believing in the vicarious atone
ment only because they drove a sharp bar
gain with God, getting everything and Civ
ing nothing, just as their Puritan ancestors
treated the Indians. The Ne,o York Trib-
une, an organ of the sect, has within few
months called tor new Bible and religion.
Emerson came of clerical stock-Puritan !;
but it took eight generations to reduce the
Puritan to Iranscendentalist, yet one is
the outgrowth of the other. The Tran
scendentalist is the Puritan inverted. To
understand the former, we must trace the
latter in his history, not as he is painted by
New England literature, but as he is; not
the great Puritan of English history who
stayed in England and fought the good
| fight, but the little Puritan who ran to this
country to get rid of the battle of Arm
ageddOn
Mr.. Cox paid tribute to the virtues of
the Puritan, but, as they were sufficiently
lauded, he proposed to examine whether
the New England type deserved all that
was said of them by themselves!
The reservoir whence the Calvinist drew
his intolerant and revengeful spirit, and
| from which his descendant draws the same,
which is seen to-day in religion and politics,
Is the spiritual pride and intellectual
| egotism which assumes to be intimate with
Omniscience and to know all things. He
referred to the intolerance now prevalent
from the same source, which dictates who
shall vote in the District and when Tennes-
see shall be State; which even strives to
forbid marriage by national statute to
those who cannot read, write, and cipher!
Laughter.]
l had the misfortune, said Mr.. Cox, to
fall under the ban of this sect. had read
the Colonial records. / told what read.
| exposed the thefts of her philosophers
from the Vedas, and the pretensions of her
political and theological charlatans to all
the civil and soul liberties of the land. For
this, the NeD York Tribune called me "the
lambdster of the Puritans," and defender
of the slavery which their descendants
have slain. .... .r
So far as the latter charge is concerned,
what "superfluous veteran" should not
be, to be in a rage with people whose great
n fot hau n
fair chance at their descendants, would
give them thirty-nine on the bare back
with scorpion, for their eXasperating
philanthropy in this matter OF the Afri-
can!
He referred to the propositions of Mas
sachusetts men, found in Che HistOricl So
ciety records, to show how war with the
Indians was urged to get slaves, and thus
Improve the continent"
1t is extremely entertaining for one who
knows anything of the "OrigineS Nova
AngliG'-the beginnings of these ''planta-
tions of God in the Eilderness"-to read a
report of New England SOciety's dinner
in one of our great cities. On these occa-
sions, amid a popping of champagne corks
which would have sounded in the ears of
Cotton Mather like salute of the musketry
Of hell fired in honor of witches Sabbath,
you blldll HCdI
divine glorify the religious freedom estab-
lshed upon Plymouth Rock, and some
smiling abolitionist, buttoning up his last
contract for guns or tin-cups in his breech-
es- pocket, dilate upon the wide humanity
which crossed the ocean in the Mayflower
for Manhattan, but was dexterously cdronsed
by the subtle Dutch burghers into Massa-
chusetts Bay! .. ...
Now Just fancy the entertainment which
the Unitarian divine, with his aesthetic no.
tions of the Deity, and his neat little theo-
ries about the atonement, would have re-
ceived from the worthy men who kicked
Mrs. Hutchinson to death, and hunted Rog-
er Williams into Rhode Island! Or imag-
inc the sanctity with which Mr.. Wendell
Phillips would have been treated to dance
in the air on Boston Common ii he had
presumed to recommend negro suffrage to
the silver-buckled and slaveholding mag
istrates of Massachusetts, Bay in the year
of our Lord 1861 ,,s. 1.lsg5 #.
Why, even so late as the year 17SS, when
the solid men of Boston met in conclave
with the mountaineers of Berkshire and
the farmers of ''rich and rural Worcester"
| to frame new Constitution for Massachu-
setts, which they gravely declared should
be "perpetual and unalterable," they pro-
yided that If any "African or negro" not
being subject of the Emperor Of Moroc-
co, should be caught hanging about the old
Bay State, he or she might be ordered by
any magistrate to 'get out of that" with
despatch, with the further specification