National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-09-29
LOGIC OF EVENTS.

n ldsCludblAS sdOJSCb lOL OIL hCuIc buIuhe
and correct generalizer would be that o
how far men are responsible for their opin
ions. Many are ready hastily to affirm tina
they are entirely responsible; while tn,
more cautious might, considering well tn,
outlying circumstances, come to the con
clusion that there are many opinions which
control the acts and lives of individuals anC
communities for which those holding then
are not responsible al all. To one who
comes to the latter conclusion, furthe
field of thought would be opened concsrn
ing the cause or causes of a want Of re
sponsibility for opinions-as to whether
the cause lies in the constitution OF the in,
dividual, in the circumstances by which he
finds himself surrounded, or in both com.
bined.
In France. it has been noted with ludi.
cious, apparent establishment by some
writer, seven the children speak French
and it has been noticed that in England they
speak the English tongue. Considering
the circumstances. We do not see how q
different result of early residence in both
cases could be expected. If the children,
eS recsSitdte, learn, as rule, only the An
guage they commonly hear, are they not
in an approximate degree, as surely COM
PEELED TO accept the beliefs which lie near
est TO their daily life, and will not such
acts as seem, when each is looked at in
isolation from other acts, to be the fruit of
pure volition, be found to have a deeper
and wider and more common cause3
Our design in propounding these ques-
tons, and introducing subject so meta
physical, is not to pursue an abstruse and
perhaps proftless investigation, but to make
a charitable and practical application; after
which the reader will be at liberty to pur-
sue our introduction in any direction and
to any extent he may desire.
In 1860, the Southern States of this
Union, under the manipulation of their
leading men, and not by any honest and
spontaneous impulses of their people, Sc
ceded and set up a government of their
own. The leaders decided they could not
live under the same Government with the
hated Puritan and Yankee; that nothing
would induce them TO do SO, and they
never, in the darkest days of their rebellion,
betrayed desire to end the war upon any
terms except those they dictated from the
complete separation and independent
government. Thousands of them threw I'D
offices of honor and profit under the hated
Government, for which places some of the
most capable of them had been educated by
the Government itselS The time had come
for once in the history of the nation when by
the same constitutional methods which had
secured them power, that power had passed
into other hands; and preferring rather ''to
rule in hell than serve in heaven" they
UNANIMOUSLY repudiated the Government
which they could not control in their own
sectional interests. 1t is here, if at all, that
our metaphysical hypothesis comes in, that
men are not responsible for their opinions.
nor for the lacts which result from them:
and the case will grow clearer as we pro-
coed. Not Southern man of prominence.
who favored the rebellion, exhibits or ac.
knowledges any sense of dIshonor in his
former course, or expresses any regret, ex-
cept that the cause o. the South did not
succeed. He repudiates the word rebel as
taunt, or glories In it without shame or
remorse. He acknowledges the right of
none to call him to account. He even as
sumes an air of superiority to the trium.
plant mudsills, as if he were the subject of
dignifed misfortune, with time pledged to
his ultimate vindication. All legislation
which modiies or reverses the old course
of his habits, social or political, hoWmuch.
soever 1t may promote ''the greatest good
of the greatest number" for which the
Government was professedly established,
ne acquiesces in. in no other spirit than
that of being compelled to accept the situ-
Ation."
When large body of men evincs such
feelings. conduct themselves in such
and repudiate as insult the idea