The Portland daily press., 1867-11-06

Mr.. Phiilips's Lssf Lecture.
The Boston Advertiser apologies for print
ing Wendell Philipss lecture entitled "thc
Dawding Congress-" because "n bis charac.
ter of selEconstituted Devils Advocate Mr.
| Phillips often says that which ii S interesting
to hear" 1t is always interesting to heai
what Mr.. Phillips has to say, because he say
| it so well. 1t makes no difference what he
says; of born rhei eiorieian like Nj. Phillips il
would be folly to expect a painstaking accu-
racy. His orations are miracles of rhetorical
ant, and it is as works of art that they are to
be Judged He deals with living men and vi
| tai questions as the historical novelist deals
| with real characters and events, altering OF
| suppressing facts and dates to suit the exi-
and Fessenden, as of late, or Lincoln and Ev-
erett, as few years ago, be is always delight
full, and is no more to be held to rigid ac-
countability for his perversiJns OF history
than is Shakespeare for geographical errors.
Shakespeare's ideal Bohemia aoas maritime
country, and Philips's ideal Grants and Ever
etts are knaves and traitors. 1t does not
disturb our enjoyment of the Winters
Tale to know that Bohemia lies in the heart
of Europe, and it need not disturb our epjoy-
ment of Phillips's rare eloquence to know that
the objects Of his denunciation are honest
men and good citizens. t..
Everybody knows, OF course, that the issues
of civil war of such magnitude as ours,
war which had been thirty years brewing and
which gave us four years of actual fighting,
are not so tractable and accommodating as to
be settled in two years of peace. Nobody
who considers what work is to be done in
overturning and reinstating the social system
OF the South, expects that gigantic task to be
fully accomplished in two years or four No
body expects such superhuman wisdom of
Congress called to grapple with such prob
lem, as to preclude the possibility of single
false step. Congress has undoubtedly com
mtted some errors; there has been much
wild talk in the Capitol; but on the whole,
the action of Congress haSbeen calm, discreet,
Ind as rapid as it could have been, consistent
ly with the national safety. There is touch
of incongruity in the epithet "dawdling," ap-
piled to such body, which is irresistibly
amusing
When we know too that the Democratic
nomination was privately rendered to Gener-
al Grant, and by him respectfully declined, it is
amusing to be told by Mr.. Phillips that
'either party may have him for the taking"
And Mr.. Philips says too, "we don't know
what Grant Thinks" we don't know (which
way his face points," 'he says to the Ameri-
can people-nothing," in short he is '.the
great American riddle," and Mr.. Phillips, like
Artemus Ward, treats him as conundrum
and gives him up. Grant was smoking his
cigar before Vicksburg, in the Wilderness, be-
fore Petersburg, at Appomattox Court House,
while Mr.. Phillips was delivering his beautiful
orations in peaceful Northern cities, and the
man of words now asks with comic empha-
sis what the man of deeds can possibly be
thinking about!
Here is another pretty passage from Mr..
Phillipss essay:
What say of johnson o-day is, that he is
willing to run all risks. So is rebeldom behind
him; SO is the Democratic party in Pennsylya-
MIA Why is Fessenden on his knees before
that element? Because he is not willing to
risk anything; and the man who is willing to
risk nothing is a slave to the man who is will
ling to risk everything. [APpause.l IT, last
spring, the republican leaders at Washington
had said to the country, NEGRO suffrage is q
necessity at the South. We cannot enforce it
there on fair principles without deereeing it
10 Ohio. We are obliged to impose it on Con-
necticut in order that it may be decent to send
il to South Carolina; and therefore, by the
Inetno9 Oh nnr. r.+s-asAns-- hs-a bill, or by the
amendment to the Constitution, we design to
submit to the country the great question, that,
in this exigency, it is indispensably necessary
for the nation, that the black race have an un-
disputed political equality" [Applause] in my
view, at that moment if it had been done in
an act covering the nation, the nation would
have submitted. Such an amendment would
have been ratified. But instead of that the
Congressional leaders remitted the question
piecemea1 They sent it to Connecticut in
to Pennsylvania in third; they mix
ed it up with rum in one State, with
disfranchisement in sc cond, and with repu-
dlation in third, and it fell to the ground
Ii could not walk on its own merits; it had no
appeal to the universal necessities of-tbe ma
ton. What Congress should have done was
to have dealt with the question themselves at
once, as national measure, and we should
have heard no more of it. lApplause.
This sounds well, and the marks of ap-
plause show that it was properly appreciated
in the Boston Music Hall. The ideal Fes-
senden "on his knees" is striking figure
The real Fessendeh, we remember, did risk
something, sending four sons into the thick
darkness of the war, and of the four one laid
down his life and another returned manned
in the service ofhis country. 1t would be un-
becoming in MIR. Phillips to say that Fessen-
den ''is not willing to risk anything" il he
were simply talking plain truth to plain peo
pie. 1t requires little effort at this point to
remember that he is merely using his privi-
lege as an orator to perfect and polish bis ora
tion. He says again, and says well, as usual,
that constitutional amendment providing
for the political equality of all American citi-
zens ought to have been submitted to the
States last spring, and if il had been submit
ted would have been ratified. 1t would have
spoiled the symmetry of Mr.. Philips's Grafton,
if he had said that this very proposition was
urged by Mr.. Fessenden in the Reconstruc-
ton Committee, not last spring but year be-
fore. We may properly enough recall that
TACT to mems memories. 1t is our daily busi-
ness, not to elaborate graceful sentences and
perfect orations, but to record the hard, dry
facts Of current history. Turning back to the
Congressional Globe, we find Mr.. Fessenden's
remarks on the constitutional amendment
which was not his choice but which he never
theless reported by direction of the Recon-
struction Committee. On the 7th of Febru.
ary, 1850, he said In the Senate
Why not propose a simple amendment doing
away at once with all distinctions on account
of race or color in all the States of this Unien
SO far as regards civil and political rights priv
ileges and immunitiss? That woald go to the
root of the matter. l am free to confess that
could / legislate upon that subject, although
can see difficulties that would arise from it,
yet trusting to time to soften them, and being
desirous to put into the Constitution princi-
pie that commends itself to the consideration
of every enlightened mind at once, would
prefer distinct proposition that all provisions
in the constitution or laws of any State, max
ing any distinction in civil or political rights,
or privileges, or immunities whatever should
be held unconstitutional, imperative and void
would like that much better.
This Is Mr.. Phillips's own proposition, but
before it was Phillips's it was Fessenden's. 1t
was overruled in the committee, as their re-
port shows, by men who dared not trust the
nation, men who were afraid OF losing Penn
sylvania, afraid of losing this, that or the
other State or District, and the question was
| remitted, as Mr.. Phillips says "piecem eal,"