Moral
From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature's text;
And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the Evil in its nature.
I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this
continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the
occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor
presume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me
till we are sure that all others are hopeless,--_flectere si nequeo_
SUPEROS, _Acheronta movebo_. To make Emancipation a reform instead of a
revolution is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border
States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States, with
us in principle,--a consummation that seems to be nearer than many
imagine. _Fiat justitia, ruat coelum_, is not to be taken in a literal
sense by statesmen, whose problem is to get justice done with as little
jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven
in it that it is not chaos. Our first duty toward our enslaved brother
is to educate him, whether he be white or black. The first need of the
free black is to elevate himself according to the standard of this
material generation. So soon as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he
will find not only Apostles, but Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees
willing to ride with him.
'Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.'
I rejoice in the President's late Message, which at last proclaims the
Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy.
As I write, comes the news of our disaster at Hampton Roads. I do not
understand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an
unequal conflict with iron. It is not enough merely to have the right on
our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have
observed in my parochial experience (_haud ignarus mali_) that the Devil
is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may
thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage. It
is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour
is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea; and that, while
gunpowder robbed land warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give
even greater stateliness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair
to degrade the latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles.
Yours, with esteem and respect,