The Portland daily press., 1867-01-26

The fourth lecture of the course before the
Mercantile Library Association was given last
evening at Mechanics Hall, by George William
Curtis, Esq. The subject was Conservatism"
This word, or the thing for which this word
stands, had come, the lecturer said, to be re-
garded with a singular generation by a great
many old women of all ages and 10th sexes;
he proposed to see what, tried by its anteced-
ents and its effects, conservatism in our coun-
try and in our time really was. He found it to
be everywhere and always, from the time when
the first seeds of liberty were planted on these
shores, to the present day, hostility to human
rsghts,-the spirit which had hung like dead
weight on every movement for the advance
ment and amelioration of the human race
Wherever the genius of liberty had been him
dered and fettered, wherever, in England or
America, the great liberty-loving Saxon prin-
ciple had been found struggling with the re-
mains of feudalism and tyranny, there its Bit
terest foe had always been called by the respec-
table name of conservatism. Every step of
progress had been opposed by it. When Eng
lish reformers proposed to abolish the slave
trade it stood aghast as if they had offered to
repeal the law of gravitation, and in this coun-
try it had with the same selfishness and cow
ardice opposed every attempt at the enlarge
ment Of the liberties of men. The lecturer de-
scribed with eaustic irony the position which
conservatism assumes in the questions which
agitate the country to-day, exhibiting it as still
the same malignant spirit of hostility to free
dom and equality. He touched elOquently on
the inherent right of every man, not only to
liberty, but to everything which is needful to
protect that liberty. Conservatism says that
the suffrage is not a natural right because a
man is not born voter. He answered, neither
is man born man but a baby. Yet as he is
born with the natural right to become both a
man and voter, and there is no earthly power
that can justly hinder his growth to either of
these.
As conservatism had no principle beyond
hostility to human rights, so it had no argu-
ment save brute force. With this ali its battles
were fought. Its stronghold in this country
had been the South He did not mean the
Southgeographically, for the Southern spirit
lived in Boston and New York, and the free
| dom-loving North did not lack its representa-
tlves in Texas and Florida, but wherever the
Southern idea of caste and of exclusion and OF
hatred to liberty prevailed there was conserva-
tism. Itwas idle to suppose that.the war had
cured this. Alexander Stephens and Gov.
| Orr and Jefferson Davis even, might accept
| the situation, but they were not converted. 1t
was Lee who surrendered in Virginia, it was
not the Southern idea. That was always the
same whether blubbering at Philadelphia
convention. or butchering men at Fort Pillow
He deprecated the charge of harshness or un.
kindness. He blamed no mans honest opin.
ions, but he claimed that the country had q
right to judge of the tendency of opinions arc
principles and to guard against such as were
dangerous to its safety. He was willing t.
| give generosity to the rebels, but he asked jus
tice for the dead boys in blue, and safety fol
the living nation. Men affected to be afrait
of radicalism. But radicalism was simply tn,
heroic common sense of the nation organized
and resolved. The spirit of agitation, thu
genius of reform are not evils, though conserv
atism ignorantly fears them, they are only ele
mental forces, which liberty uses to tame ant
civilize the world
The lecture abounded in those flashes of fer
vid eloquence, and touches of quiet droller,
for which this speaker is so eminent No re
port can convey any adequate idea of it, bu
the audience testified their approval and in
terest by the closest attention and by repeate,
applause.