The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-10
IF MEN WOULD FEEL RIGHT.


abstract reason, unquestionably. But, after
all, the supreme thing for the social phil
osopher, =. .ne statesman, the reformer, the
preacher TO consider is, not how to make men
think right, bat how to make men feel right
One of the most pestilent fallacies which i'm
bues and corrupts the current philosophy OF
history is that which refers wars and revolu'
tions-the late war and the yet pending re-
yolution in the United States, for example
to violent collisions of antagonistic and un-
compromising ideas. Mr.. Stephens glides
insensibly into this fallacy in his "War be-
tween the States" We mean that this other
wise able and exhaustive work is radically at
fault by reason of the predominating error
that the North and the South fought each
other simply because one adhered to the idea
of the confederation of sovereign States, and
the other to the idea of unconditional union
under central authority. The cause of the
cause, the direful spring of the woful trouble,
Mr.. Stephens passes over with serene in
difference that looks positively monstrous.
And yet it had been operating before his eyes
for years in seething mass of human pas
sions and activities which it would seem
that he was by mental. constitution incapable
of adequately approaching. At least we can
not reject this supposition without impugning
his candor. Had his temper been less phil
osophical, his history, no doubt, would have
been more philosophical. But we do not
purpose to make Mr.. Stephens psychology
cal study. We refer to his work merely
as an illustration of the aptitude of unim-
passioned minds floating in a stormless
sea of pure intellection to impute the dissen-
sions and conflicts of society to differences
upon abstract points of political and religious
creeds; in other words, to contrary and ire
concilable ideas. But it is absolutely incon-
ceivable that ideas, in a human sense, can be
inimical to each other, and hence it is impos-
sible that, through human agencies, they can
come into belligerent collision. Belligerent
hostility is moral emotion. 1t is true that
warlike passions may be infamed by honest
differences of view on subjects of intellectual
contemplation. Yet it is plain that such
causes alone, in the absence of predominant
predisposition to violence on the moral side
of human nature, could never produce war.
Men do not go to war and butcher one another
because they may differ in their ideas about
chemistry, about optics, about acoustics,
about music, painting, sculpture and archi-
lecture. They fight only when their interests
or affections are touched. They fight in order
to keep something which they have, or to
obtain something which they have not. And
if ideas play part in their contests, it is
merely as symbols or shadows of their warlike
passions.
Wendell Phillips is one of the charlatanical
philosophers who dreams of forging all hu-
manity over, by special commission from the
Almighty, upon the same theological pattern.
He believes that there may be universal
peace, and he generously consents that there
shall be universal peace, when all mankind
shall have been moulded into the likeness of
New England-that is to say, after the god
like image of Wendell Phillips. Therefore,
he is heard proclaiming that "nothing is
immortal but ideas" But nothing, in reality,
o most impudent and blasphemous of mount
ebanks is more shifting, fugacious and per-
ishable than those broods of human specula-
ton which are commonly known as ideas.
The only immortalities of this world are the
passions, the hopes, the fears, the vices and
moral distempers of humanity. In this
deathless sisterhood is comprised the sum of
human miseries and felicities. Man that is
born of woman is of few days and full of
trouble. But there is no term to the life-in-
death which has birth and nurture among
that sisterhood. 1t is mightier than the
grave, and more regal than the grave-worm.
The Inference is clear and indisputable.
The only radical and effective reform for the
ills of society is that which shall address itself
primarily and mainly to what may, for dis
tinctions sake, be called the moral faculties
of men. The doctrine of Plato, of Turgot,
of Goodwin, of Bentham, of Siege, of Madi-
son, that men will never knowingly go against
reason, that they can not ''see the right, and
yet the wrong pursue" that they will infalli-
bly, adopt and adhere to the conditions of
perfect government and philosophical social
system if those conditions are intelligibly SUBJ
mitted to their acceptance-this doctrine has
wrought an incalculable amount of dire delu-
nlOu duu COu4uciOu anu uiotottI. uo ldbhl
mistake of this class of biologists and consti-
is in taking too little account of
the moral side of human nature, or, to speak
more strictly, in undertaking the principles of
prejudice, peIversity and deprayity as con-
slant elements in all social problems. Madi-
sons constitution would have been a perfect
perfect people. If Americans had
all been philosophers like Plato, Socrates and
Confucius, or saints as loving as John aud
as wise as Seraphs, under that Constitution,
they might have lived In endless prosperity,
harmony and fraternity. But, as. it was,
from the very beginning the corruption and
of the human heart cast ominous
shadows on the development of the nicely
wrought scheme, and dimly foreboded the
storm and deluge for which it
traced the way. Yet it is not to be doubted
that the Madisonian Constitution commended
itself to the abstract reason of the great ma
lority .ofthe American people as an admirable
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