The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 18??-1882, 1881-08-05

secure sympathy and support IN
America, deserve careful considera.
ption. Liberty is potent word to
conjure with, and many cause has
won adherents by merely breathing
it. But, like a fair seeming face
that masks a wicked heart, or like
} a pious invocation from insincere
lips, 1t may be made to cloak uuholy
purposes, and the true patriot, be.
: fore he gives his encouragement to
any cause that blazons forth that sa
cred name, will first satisfy himself
that the cause taketh it not in vain.
The American people, free and
happy under the benign governments
they have reared for themselves,
have ever manifested a lively sym
pathy in the struggles of less bless
ed peoples for the right to rule them
selves. The French, long suffering
I beneath the oppression of an indo-
lent aristocracy; the Greeks, turning
with the desperate valor that of old
made Marathon and Thermopyla
possible, against the cruel regimen
of the Turk; the South-American
Republics, rebelling against Spanish
greed; the Irish, whose spirit of re-
sistance, eight hundred years old,
still contends, with undiminished
faith and fire, for the boom of local
government; these, as has every
race that has sought to escape the
shame Of slavery even at the hazard
OF death, have felt the strong arm of
American assistance about them, and
have drunk inspiration from every
gale that has blown upon them from
our shores. Nor ought we to be less
ready in our sympathy as we become
more powerful. On the contrary we
are doubly bound to give it where
it is deserved, in proportion as our
increasing greatness makes it of
more value. But we should be very
careful that we do not the cause of
liberty and ourselves an injury by
extending our support to unworthy
petitioners.
A spirit of sympathy is apt not to
be discriminating. 1t seldom recog-
nizes that the same cause may pre-
sent grounds for censure as well as
for commentator. There is very
much in the cause of the Russian Nj
hillsts to arouse the interest of our
freedom loving citizens, but we must
carefully distinguish between the OBJ
ject they are seeking and the means
with which they pursue it.
We naturally feel much resent
ment against the autocratic govern
ment of Russia, and are inclined to
grant almost any degree of license
to the revolutionists in their efforts
to liberalize polity that seems to
be useless remnant of the tyranny
of darker ages. Bnt violence and
assassination cannot fit people for
self-government. Education, social,
political and moral popular culture,
by slow and sure process, will both
prepare them to exercise it, and will
eventually make them opportunities
to procure it. Different forms of
government exist mainly because
men are differently fitted to be gov
erned. A savage tribe would be an
unpromising place to make an exper.
iment of Republican government. |
A race cannot jump from the lowest
to the highest political state. AL
process Of slow development is neces-
sary. This is the important fact that |
Nihilists and their too ready sympa- |
thixers have overlooked. |
Among the agitators are many |
that have both spirit and intelligence,
but the great mass of the people is,
as yet, quite unfit for the constitu- |
tional government some are dream
ing Of. If the time now wasted in |
violent outbreaks and cunning con-
spiracies were occupied in preparing |
the people for the exercise of politi- |
cal privileges by and by, the govern
ment could be conciliated, reforms
could gradually be instituted and
made practicable, and q sure founda-
tion of national happiness could be |
laid. It is absurd to suppose that a |
population Of ninety millions Of
whom twenty-three millions were In
seffdom twenty years ago; among
whom education is in its infancy;
where local representative govern
rnent, even in It's merest outlines, is
only sixteen years old; and where1
trial by jury and the rational ad-
ninistration Of justice are novelties
Of the recent past, is capable of ex-