The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-06-20
HE BASIS OF AETI-RADICAL ORGANI
ZATION


The heart of the difficulty encountered by
Southerners, conservatives and Democrats,
when they look for available ground on which
to fight together against the common radical
enemy, lies in the question of what are the
accomplished facts of the situation. Let
them agree upon this point, and they will
know precisely where they can, without vio-
lence to principle, and in obedience to the
highest expediency, take their stand. 1t will
not do to oppose to the urgency of finding
such basis for practical and efficient CO.
operation the idea that principle has a
vitality of its own, which is entirely indie
pendent Of accomplished facts, and of active
or potential forces. The truth is that, as
regards political and social questions, every
vital principle, every principle whichis conse-
quential in its nature, capable of visible and
concrete existence, and destined to play an
essential part in human history, must have its
foundation in actual conditions, and must be
identical with some force developed from
these conditions. 1t is a5 absurd to talk
about a living principle separated from facts
as it would be to talk about the existence of
astronomy without the celestial bodies, of
mechanical laws without matter, of geometry
without space of arithmetic without units.
less to assert and enforce, such thing as an
absolute and self-determined principle.
Pride of intellect pride of theory, pride of
sentiment, are prone to revolt against the
humiliation of this truth. Fanaticism, the
most pernicious and disastrous which have
afflicted mankind, could always be resolved,
under psychological analysis, into a desperate
effort of the human mind to set itself above
nature and above Providence. The begin
ming of wisdom is an humble recognition of
the impossibilities which fence around all
human desires and contrivances. The states
manship which does not commence there is
doomed to confusion and disaster. Men go
mad when they cease to admit and to realize
that, whether they attempt to move forward
without pause or divergence, or to stand
immovable where they are, they will under
take what it is beyond human power to
accomplish.
1t is not difficult to apply these general re-
Elections to the problem of a sound statesman
like and available basis of organization for the
opponents, in all parts of the country, to the
radical faction. All that is necessary for re-
moving obstacles to the attainment of such a
basis is to distinguish between accomplished
facts, whether-abstractly considered
or bad, which are practically beyond dispute,
and questions which are still, for practical
purposes, within the range of argument and
effort. Among Democratic speakers and
writers there are some who appear to assume
that the Southern opponents of radicalism
are incapable Of making this distinction.
They appear to think that the Southern
whites are so resolute in their constancy to
ideas which have no longer any relevancy to
facts that they are prepared to cling to these
ideas to the extremity of sacrificing them
selves and their section on the altar of per-
fectly abstract and irrelevant consistency.
Such notion is not less disparaging to the
patriotism than to the intelligence of the
people to whom it refers Gentlemen, you
greatly mistake. The Southerners who failed
in their struggle for independence, lost terri
bly,, to be sure, even beyond that failure but
you are not as yet authorized by events to de-
clare that they crowned the climax of their
losses by losing their brains. A man may be
true, consistent and patriotic Southener
without exhibiting indubitable symptoms of
lunacy or idiotcy. No men have a more
thorough sense Of the changes wrought by
war, of the facts and farces, the possibilities
and impossibilities, of the actual situation,
than the majority of those who staked most
heavily on the Confederate cause, and who
lost most largely by its miscarriage.
Having struggled manfully but vainly for
certain ideas and institutions, no one is more
disposed than the whole-souled Southerner to
look facts as they are bravely in the face, and
to resign to champions of those ideas and in
situations who did not lift finger in their
behalf, when it was possible to stand by them
In the crisis of war, the whole glory of vindi-
eating them, now that they have no longer
substance or basis in the actual situation,
with fine frenzy of abstraction which is not
only foreign to the exigent needs, but obstruct-
i've to the practical reforms of the hour. The
anti-radical combination must look for their
weapons and their watehwords in the area Of
accomplished facts if they are to make VIC
torious campaign. it is only by so doing that
thew mo as h.