The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1874-09-25
A Running Commentary on the last
Letter of John NJ. Orr, Esq. :
RICHMOND. September %, IS

RICHMOND, September %, 1874.
Editors Of the Dispatch:
Gentemen,- After delay since my pub
lication on the 9th instant, which was
wholly unable to prevent, am now at
liberty to resume.
If our American Republic prove failure,
cit will become the final verdict and the
settled conviction of mankind that there is
in human nature that which makes this form
Of government as impossible as the dream of
Utopia; that the human mass lacks the
degree of excellence needful for self-goVern.
ment; that there are congenital defects in
the Republican form of government,
which, like seeds of consumption lying
hidden ia the fairest youth, will in time
develop themselves beyond the wit or the
skill Of man to eradicate, or even to stay,
and which will end in the sure and early
dissolution Of what may be the centre of the
most precious hopes and the object of uni
versal admiration" This is very much the
conviction at which many of us have already
arrived, and some OF our reasons therefor
propose now to discuss.
Mr. Orr says truly "The basis of Re-
public is trust in the proximate perfection
Of human nature; presumption of mems
power Of self-controI; of their capacity to
dinate self to duty; to know the right, and
| to do il; or, when wrong, to return to the
right, as the highest wisdom and safety that
sense Of right and Of good policy will,
when the masses get wrong, sooner or later
assert itself, and will lead them to correct
any unjust or erroneous policy, as we'll from
dread of the reaction on themselves as for
the abstract desire to be just to Others"
In the light of history, remote and recent,
this " basis !" suggests comparison to the wild
imagining of some closet theorist, whose cir
Gle of acquaintance is restricted to half q
score and should be rather surprised that
SO intelligent writer as Mr.. Orr was not
struck by the grim satire lying latent in
words conveying this ludicrously fattering
estimate of human nature, were it not for
| the next paragraph, wherein his mind is
| shown TO have been occupied with impress
sions of certain characters coptemporaneous
| with the inception of our momentous eXpe.
riment, as men who went to sleep happy in
| the belief that 1t had been left for them 20
solve the mighty problem on which the
world had been so long abortlvely at work.
This was deliciousy soothing to their
vanity, and l am glad the old fellows died
happy notwithstanding the very defective and
oyer-burthened inheritance to which we
fall heir. Though cannot fully endorse
what is here said of Washington, still,
| not wishing to multiply subjects of dis
cussioD, l will concede what is claimed for
him-concede that he was the I. incarnation
ofthe idea Of republic "-but In making that
concession I regard myself as necessarily
denying bis being representative man, save
only of very limited class. ] do not be-
lIeve at in the "proximate perfection of
human nature" I believe the approxima-
ton is greatly nearer to perfect seifishness,
and that for both temporary and permanent
results your most powerful appeal is always
to the seli-interest of the masses--or what
they deem such, often enormously some
times openly, some times covertly, according
ns circumstances counsel. Pause mo-
ment, and the reason Of this Is not diff,
ficulti to detect. Take the world over, or,
to make the experiment under most
favorable auspices, enter any community