The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-12-21
PRESS.
Saturday Morning. December 81, 1857.

PORTLAND. II

No idea was ever conceived which took
stronger hold upon the imaginations of a large
number Of people than that of the lyric
poet who proclaimed the march of John
Browns soul. At first the simple refrain was
regarded as mere doggerel little above the
level of ordinary negro miDstrelsy, but hnally
the poets song received higher approval
than any lay of troubadour or minnesinger,
and became classic. Gladstone, defeat
ed for Parliament from the University
of Oxford, which it had been his pride and
joy to represent, and elected by humber
constituency, said, in effect, that though he
died at the University, yet he was somehow
marching on" down in Lancashire. Among
the Liberals of Continental Europe the same
figure has become a favorite one, and no
throne Is shaken and no people becomes free
without some expression OF the fancy that
the benignant but martial spirit of John
Brown leads the assault that gives the people
liberty. In our own country, above all, the
fancy has become as strong as such fancy
may ever be among a people with whom
saints and tuteary de.ties are ignored. With
the freedmen. especially, it is pleasant di-
version for their imaginative natures, to con-
ceive that the spirit of the brave old man
whose body reroses so quietly among the
mountains of North Elba, leads them to sue
cessive triumphs in civil liberty.
But at every trivial municipal election
which is carried In the interest of conserva-
tism, the Democrats declare that at length
the old mans soul, tired with its eight years.
march, has halted. They proclaim that the
mighty ghost that haunts this latter half of
the nineteenth century is laid. The elections
OF last fall especially are thought to have driv.
en- it finally across the Styx. They foolishly
date the beginning of human progress from
1859, not realizing that John Bro own, its most
striking embodiment in these later times, Is
but the symbol of that eternal principle
which the Deity himself has made insepara-
BILE from our race. So they confidently put
forward their parrot-cry of ''a white mans
government to resist what is as irrefragble
as the law of gravitation. t.. .,-,
The progress of the American people has
been marked most accurately for some years
past by the successive steps of the negros all
vancement toward citizenship. And so far as
that particular campaign is concerned, John
Brown may soon halt in very deed, for the
goal is almost reached. More than half
million negroes are enfranchised in the ten
uni reconstructed States aid Tennessee.
There is no power but revolution that can
deprive them Of the ballot, and there is no
disposition to do so on the part of the only
body that has any jurisdiction in the matter.
Only the other day the House of Representa-
tives, by vote of Ill to 32, declared that it
would "never make one retrograde move !
ment" in that policy of which negro suffrage
is the cardinal principle, and the Senate is
known to be equally firm. So the great body
of African citizens are to be voters, and un.
der the new constitutions of the Southern
States they win be eligible to Office. In the
District OF Columbia the right to hold office
and to sit on juries has already been confer
red upon them by an act of Congress, which
is now only awaiting the Presidents veto to
be passed by two-thirds vote. In Tennes-
see, too, the same rights have recently been
CouicIrcus duu III auultlOu tnOretO IL mas Deen
provided that no discrimination against per-
sons of color shall be made by corporations
engaged in carrying passengers. III .raH
The most gratifying feature of this pro-
gressive movement is that it can aerer be re-
versed. Until right is attained, the con-
servative force that opposes it, works with
considerable efficiency, but it is not in the
politics or the philosophy of this century to
restrict rights which are already conferred
and enjoyed. Once citizen, always citi-
izen, is an axiom which is now fully recog-
died, the commission of crime being the on
lyIexception to the generality of the rule. so
long as one of the fundamental laws of hu-
man nature and the will of the American
people, expressed through their representa-
tives, speed John Brown on his march, not
Hancock himself, much fondled and caressed
by his exalted patron, can for one moment
delay his footsteps. i7lo -ilH o1f