Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1869-09-15

My DEAR Mr.. BRIGCs Your note of the
29th, after a rather long journey, reached
me here Yesterday. | should be very glad to
see YOU and talk with you on any subject
but politics. DR.. Bailey used to say that of
Bunyan' 5 Pilgrims he represented Christian
and / Hopeful. am still hopeful. When
was Younger, and thought that if largely
trusted by the people | could do good service
to the country, | should have been glad 10
have been so trusted. Now | am older, and
not at all satisfied that, if in a higher place,
| could do any better than those now exer-
cising executive functions do. | an more
than content to let aspiration alone. NV
hopes are in others.
1t amuses1me to hear Of Chase movements
here and there. | don believe there are
any such. As far as locality is given to
them in Maryland, | know there are none,
for | spent two or three DAYS in Frederick
this week, and should have heard of them if
any existed. | don't believe a bit in them
elsewhere. 1t can only perform with rea-
sonable satisfaction to my own conscience,
and to the opinions of those best qualified to
Judge, the duties Of my present position, l
shall fill the largest measure Of my present
ambition. | want nothing whatever of a
political character, and desire that my name
may be disassociated hereafter in mems
minds with all political action. If this is too
HlACh ~ tApCCbs ACb HIC Hbpcs NJ lCt5Is LIdl
no friend of mine Will lend any countenance
to such absurd nonsense as that to which L
have referred. Sincerely your friend.
JAMES A. BRIGGS ESQ. 5. P. CHASE.
We trust the Chief Justice will str ictly
adhere to the determination expressed in the
above letter.
To the anti-slavery men Of an earlier day
who were in the habit of regarding Mr..
Chase and Mr.. Seward as the champions of
freedom, the later course of these gentlemen
has proved anything but satisfactory, and
has contributed materially to shake faith in
all leaders and leadership. Indeed, when
such eminent men as these apparently turn
their back upon many of the distinctive prIn
ciples for which their public life has been
characterized, and, led on by the desire for
the presidency, array themselves in hostility
to the friends of former days, we have a most
melancholy evidence OF the uncertainty OF
human wisdom and the instability OF human
opinions. In the cases of Mr.. Chase and
Mr.. Seward, moreover, their course in late
years has been all the more uuaccOuntable,
inasmuch as their anti-slavery opinions at
the outset could not have been taken up as
a popular movement. When they first be-
gan the battle for freedom the cause was
weak in the country and in the Senate, and
it required a bold man to stand firm and
steady in the front of the fight. If men who
only join the right in the moment of its
triumph leave it afterwards, we say they
were never honest in their convictions but
this cannot be said truthfully Of those who
advocate justice when injustice is popular.
We, therefore, cannot imagine that Mr..
Chase was an anti-slavery man from %self-in-
terest in his younger days but rather must
agree that the best men and the most honest,
are capable of being 50 soured by disappoint-
ed ambition as to become not only alienated
from former friends, but to become also
alienated from former opinions.
For it is not exactly true,-as perhaE the
apOlogists for these eminent men may urge
that they arc still true to their former be-
liefs and opinions, and still true to freedom.
They may keep the word of promise to the
car, but they break it to the hope. They
may say that they still believe in the old
maxims and grand truths which they uttered
in former days when they were the champi-
ons of Justice, but they are not true to them
any more than the farmer is true in his hus-
bandry because he does mt pull up his corn
by the roots in July and thus undo the
work of May, although he refuses to cult
vGte it in the summer and to cure and save
it in the harvest. True and honest states
manship and true and honest politics are
progressive as much as husbandry is pro-
gr%essive, and he who stops short in either of
the completed and garnered harvest is not
true to the promise Of his spring-time.
But we cannot but confess to a feeling of
pain, and to a disagreeable shaking Of our
filth in human nature, when we remember
such statesmen as Webster and Seward and
Chase, who furnished the lustre of their
venerable lives by their eager aspiration for
the presidency. Not that we would by any
means express the conviction that the best
statesman may not rightfully aspire to the
highest Office in the gift of the people; for
he who is capable of serving his country
may even without indelicacy seek opportuni-
ties of rendering it service but we can but
feel the profo undest regret that ones politi
cal opinions can be colored by personal re-
bluffs or defeats,-or can be changed in order
to be made more agreeable to a new set of
followers or a new class of political SUI =
porters.
If the political career of such men as Mr..
Chase serves to teach the people the use Of
less faith in men and greater fidelity to
principles, it will not be without its value.
1t is, indeed, one of the most hopeful char
acteristics of our people that they so gener-
ally decline to follow old leaders into strange
paths. Mr.. Webster found that the voters
of New England, Notwithstanding their great
and just admiration for him, left him, how
ever reluctantly, behind and marched straight
forward in their battle against slavery. The
masses of the friends of equal rights, soon
after 1861, lost faith in Mr. Seward and re-
fused longer to take his utterances as their
political gospel. And as soon as Mr.. Chase
showed that he loved the presidency more
than he valued the principles which he had,
together with the great anti-slavery party OF
the land, SO long held, they left him-with
sorrow to be sure-to his new affiliations and
his coquetting with the Democratic party,
while they kept their faces still fixed in their
forward march toward the full contamination
of their hopes for the future of the republic.
This steadfastness to principle, which has so
sure a place among the intelligent and un-
aspiring common people of the nation, is the
anchor of our safety. Ofice-seekers and
placc-hunters are obliged to respect it, or to
seem to, and that large army of adventures
isthus deprived of half its power for mischief.
1t cannot be bought or bribed or misIed. II
II eyer sets mn idols IL reserves To itself the