Daily Los Angeles herald., 1883-11-01

MT. u. ". Howe is tho Santa Ana agent p
tho HERALp.
The True Water Line of Public
Sentiment.
Probably not year has passed since
the war closed leaving out the acerbi'
ties begotten OF an extremely partizan
reconstruction which more and more
people, both In tho North and in the
South, have not blessed the splendid pat
riotic impulsewhich preserved the Union.
The South has accepted the verdict OF
the war with signal and most beneficial
unanimity, unless tho Hon. Jefferson
Davis and the Hon. Robert Toombs
shall be held to be exceptions which
inyalidate instead Of proving the rule
But there is now taking place a rc
adjustment Of public opinion which Is
worthy Of note. Tho Empire Of Great
Britain, as at present constituted, bcne.
fitted immensely by the battle Of Cullo
den, in which somewhat brutal and
stupid Duke Of Cumberland triumphed
over "Bonnie Prince Charlie and his
poorly disciplined forces; yet 1t is safe
to say there is not to-day single Briton
Of intellect and inspiration who would
not shudder at being obliged TO prosti-
tuto his genius to celebrating the prowess
and virtues of the brutal Hanoverian
Duke. On the other hand, Walter
Scott oonsecrated his matchless powers
to idealizing the Lost Cause of the
Stuarts.
There are not wanting many indica-
tions that, in the immediate ensuing
decades, the Southern rebellion will
profit by similar revulsion Of public
sentiment. Having fought down oppo-
sition, and established q superb nation,
the American people remember how
flimsy was the original band which
held our States together. They re-
member that the curse of slavery was a
joint affair, whose whole burden. by q
timely and perhaps cunning cmancipa-
tion in tho Northern States, was thrown
upon the people Of the South.
Perhaps one of the most marked
instances of remodeling of public senti-
ment, as to matters which led up to the
war, is contained in a paper, contributed
to tho last number of the North
american Reriew, by the Rev.
David N. Utter, under tho. title
of John Brown, Of Osawatomie. "
The practice has been, for years, to cx-
pend unconsidered adiectives of praise
on everything Republican or Aboli-
zionist. The man who has lived through
the past twenty years has been obliged
to swim In sea of bombast and slush.
Forty-third rate men have been eulo-
gized in expansive adjectiyes that would
have been far better suited to demigods
than to the pigmies to whom they were
addressed. In truth, 1t would puzzle a
man, whose command of language sim
ply ranged in ordinary lines, to address
to the Deity adjectives so dubious, 80
cumbrous and so exaggerated as have
been heaped, without stint, upon dema-
gogues whose Importance viii be mini
fed every year, and whose very ex-
istense will be forgotten twenty years
from now.
The heights to which this unreiccting
and disgusting madness was carried have
never been better illustrated than in the
case of "Old John Brown" of Osawato-
mie, in the present. State of Kansas. Ii
ever there was "a cut purse of the En-.
pire and the Rule, " this fellow was one.
He was essentially freebooter law
less man of turbulent instincts. He be.
longed by natural selection to the loot
ing and marauding genus who inhabited
the Scotch Highlands, and as to whom
ran the characteristic refrain,
Said God to the Highland mon,
Quhair wouldst thou now
Down to the Lowands, Lord
And there steal cow"
With very moderate range OF ideas,
and with spirit of foray and appropri'
alton which discounts anything known
in the annals of the Scottish Highlands,
this vulgar freebooter, John Brown, has
momentarily gone into song and story.
Fortunately, however, for the fidelity
of the records Of mankind, the song is
merely doggerel and the story is subject
to revision; andiSsa this good work, tho
Revered Mr.. Utter ~ playing his part.
In the present passionless times, in
which common sense rules the day, and
which are characterized by an emphatic
revival OF the Democratic party, the
only constitutional party which this
country has produced, the rhap-
sodies into which the supposititous intel
lectual lights of New England ran, in
connection with John Brown, simply
seem incredible. We will review few
of them, to point the moral of extreme
psrtizanship and to adorn the tale OF
returning national common sense. Elm
erson, the Corypheus of namby-pamby
intellectual New Englandism, spoke of
Brown as "the saint whose martyr,lom
twill make the gallows glorious like the
''cross." Thoreau said "Ile could not
shave been tried by his peers, ior his
s'peers did not exist Theodore Par.
s'ker wrote from Rome: Brown, think,
.'will die like martyr, and also like a
saint None OF the Christian mar
"tyrs died in vain; and from Stephen.
who was stoned at Jerusalem, to
''Mary Dyer, whom our fathers hanged
''on a bough of 'the great tree on Bos.
''ton Common, | think there have been
"few spirits more pure and devoted than
John BrosR's<Rd none that gave up
:. .'tA-,ib ..Al--,i breath inXe nobler cause Let
"the American Sta hang his body, and
"the American q nrch damn his soul,
"still the blessing pf such as are ready
ITO perish will fall Jon him, and the uni-
"versal justice Of fhe infinitely perfect
God will take him welcome home.
The road to Heaven is as short from
"the gallows as from throne, perhaps
"also as easy"
Such were the rhapsodies OF the eclec-
tic school OF New England twenty-five
or twenty-three years ago. The paper
OF the Rev. David y. Utter shows Tint