The Louisianian. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1870-1871, 1871-02-09
NIL NISI .RONUM.

General Lee has been dead two months,
Farragut four, Charles Dickens Sly,
Thaddeus Stevens nearly two years; and
yesterdays, to days, and to morrow's
papers still demonstrate against our dis
cussing their careers and characters. on
the ground that such sacrilege ''desecra-
te the dead" The question occurs, when
do the dead pass into history When
may we bow out the tedious funeral eu-
logist and bow in the historian? How
long must the career remain, by custom
and courtesy, the exclusive property of
whorshippers? When win the character,
which yesterday was the worlds common
property, be again open to study, APP
probation, and Judgment During how
many hours, days, months, or years,
shall the pen Of the panegyrist denounce
the quill of the critic? 'a i-H
What is true to-day of R. E. Lee, and
Dickens and Thad Stevens, win anon be
true of JEFF. Davis, Ben. Butler, General
Grant, and Bennett, as it was, not long
since, Of Clay, Benton, and Calhoun
their more ardent friends and partisans
will stigmatize as ghouls and vampires
all who take less glaring view of their
dead heroes, and who discriminate in
their respect and admiration. When
Webster died, and Theodore Parker criti
cised his career far less severely than
while the great Massachusetts, stateman
was living, Webster's friends were thun-
derstruck; but when the divine in his
turn died, it was for Parker's friends to
be astounded at the 'timpious and sacri-
lcgious" sentiments of the friends of
Webster But while much respect is due
to the grief of family, kinsman, friends,
and, and even Of political and social adj
mirers, yet, if we concede too much to
the event of death itself, Probst and
Traupmann might for a time become
respectable public characters, after their
we'll merited hanging. And, in the Sc
cond pllce, while no time Gun be set as
securing public character from free dis
cussion, SO VIC cannot declare of oil NOR
tai that we are to say nothing Of them
but praise; for, according to that rule.
We should have to temporarily rcbuke
censure even of Judas and Nero
Of course TIE reader has all along had
in mind the maxim Of antiquity on this
subject; in fact. "say nothing but good OF
the dead" is a rule which perpetually
comes to remembrance, and rarely
without provoking q sense Of its injus-
tice. Only few months since writer in
the Saturday Review" felt the need
If defending the ancient saw,as he
did in an article which was GER
tainly ingenious and interesting, though
very lame in logic. De mo'tuis nil nisi
'onum-must we follow that rule? A
thought of the villains, brutes. and by
pocrites of history and experience, shows
the abs,udity of q strict Interpretation;
and that one conceded, common sense
applies the rule only with reservations
and exceptions, even to saints and heroes.
Like other adages, the maxim de mo,tuis
must be taken with discretion, not literal
ly and blindly.
The happy medium lies, perhaps, be-
tween the brutality of reckless abuse on
the one hand, and. on the other, that
sickly sentimentality which would shield
knavery and cruelty, as well as honest
but egregious error, from pointing their
proper moral. All are level in the grave,
but SO are they not in history; and, If
there be any difference between right and
wrong, between honor and dishonor, be-
tween truth and error, between strength
and weakness, between quick conscience
and q scared conscience, between perccp-
ton and attainment of what is desirable,
and misguided groupings in blunders and
crimes, we must make the distinction.
To obiterate differences SO broad, to
stiAe convictions always hitherto express
ed, to weakly concede what has long
been conscientiously denied, is to confuse
the minds of all who wait on others for
the information Of opinions. THERE'S an
English saying which comes naturally
from the falsity Of the Latin maxim, ut