Daily Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1876-1884, 1878-02-20

| tne very age ana DOuy OF tlme.'
His life was force that cannot die.
That fireside criticism which
dwells apart in the seclusion of its
own self-importance and would not
soil its dainty fingers by contact
with affairs, which believes govern
ment IL q scie rs exact s u11th-
ematics, that human p0turei- plas
tic as clay am cold as mn k. MAY
dwarf his imi .u ..e penny uiir-
ror it holds tY tuu universe auI
in which the only colossal figure "a
beholds is the rene.t.on otiiseir;
but he made his own place in histo-
ry "safe 'gainst the tooth of time
DdfaSdfe of oblivion"
Me lived in an heroic age-this
i AEGEAN age so great that the dis
lance of intervening. centuries will
be necessary to measure its hero
ism, its achievements, and its sac
rjfices.
We, as Americans, must be eX-
cusable for believing, we should be
inexcusable if we did not believe,
that no political question of graver
consequence to all succeeding time,
was ever confronted by any people
than that which eliminated in our
civil war. History will record that
the war was the inevitable result
of an irrepressible conflict of moral
forces, for which peace had no ar
bitrament. Morton's life was cast
ina State where this conflict Of
opinion was eager, passionate and
doubtful. He was at the meeting
of the currents in the circling of
the maelstrom. What to others
was conviction, a sentiment, to
him became an inspiration and a
passion. He was intensely Amer
lean. For his large nature, and for
his great ambition too, the CONT
nent was none too wide. That his
country should play subordinate
part in human affairs, never en-
tered his Imagination to conceive.
He would have enlarged the
bounds of destiny to give it scope
and amplitude. The sentiment
that this is "nation, one, indivis.
ibie, indestructible," so permeated
his intellect that any other seemed
political PROCLAMATION and sacrilege.
With him this was not theory of
construction, but a source and GEN.
ter; not an abstraction, but living
faith. Not Webster has expressed
his faith with more massive
strength, nor Baker with more i'm.
passionate fervor.
No man had an earlier or clerer
apprehension of the magnitude of
the war on whose verge we stood
and the tremendous issues it in
volved. OF Titan mold, near to
nature, elemental powers were his
familiars. He had an instructive
sense of the awful forces that are
~ sy sMS pr H IL Rney Ely, t sset
the floating down, the fury of the
tempest slept.
In the halcyon days, amid delu.
sive promises of peace, he saw that
war was inevitable, and rose to the
supreme height of the occasion. In
speech on the 22d of Novem Der,
1860, which rang through the coun-
try like a call to arms, he said:
"Seven years is but day in the
lifetime of u nation, and I would
rather come out of a struggle at the
end of that time defeated in arms,
conceding independence to success
full revolution, than to purchase
present peace by the concession of
a principle that must inevitably eX-
plode this nation into small, dis
honored fragments"
He fiunked nothing, concealed
nothing. He knew the uncertain.
ties of war, its dread sacrifices, and
declared that all these, though fol-
lowed by defeat, were better than
inaction or the compromise of u
principle he deemed essential to
the existence of any republic on
this continent.
This was at once his confession of
political faith, and the keynote of
his character. In the cause he
championed, he would have dared
fate itself to the lists, and matched
his will against the courses of the
stars.
There is neither time nor necessi-
ty to trace his career. 10 leave out
Morton and his influence would be
to rewrite the history of this coun-
try for the past eighteen years, and
to modify it for all time to come.
In the great struggle on which the
existence of the Union was staked,
he held the central fort. No living
man eau tell what the result would
have been If he had not been where
and what he was.
In character his will dominated
mis- intellect, great as that was.
He seemed incapable of indecision.
10 resolve was to leave doubt be-
hind. Thought, resolution, action,
were constant.
AS a debater he was an athlete
trained down to pure muscle. In
speech, careless of the graces of
uratory and polish of style, his
earnestness enchanted attention,
his directness carried conviction,
and there was natural symmetry
in the strength of his statement
above the reach Of art.
He was partisan; instinct and
experience taught him that organ
ization was essential to the triumph
of any political principle or the
the successful administration of q
popular government. He was
born leader, conscious Of his power
and jealous of his right to lead.
He was ambitious; but blessed is
the memory of him whose ambi-
tinn 10 q nnn "a tha hast aoni,,a