One of their number whose name will not appear in history,
published a book, entitled "True Civilization an Immediate Necessity."
Surely enough true civilization is and always has been an immediate
necessity: a necessity like the feast of Tantalus: but how is it to be
realized? The purest saints and noblest statesmen have struggled and
died in despair in the attempt to elevate humanity a single inch above
the condition in which they found it.
Of course such a chimera as that of the abolitionists could only be
entertained by young, inexperienced and slightly educated men. Their
effort was a noble one, a blunder in the right direction; but they had
no conception of the explosive material which was contained in the
doctrine of non-resistance. Instead of moral persuasion and an era of
peace, there followed a desolating war in itself worse than fifty years
of African Slavery. The abolitionists were blamed for that calamity very
much as the Protestants have been blamed for the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew; and yet without doubt they were responsible for a portion
of it. Gunpowder cannot be made of sulphur and carbon alone, but
saltpetre also must be added.
Those who remain in this immature condition of fixed ideas throughout
life, purchase their experience at too high a rate. Whittier's poetic
art saved him from this and separated him finally from his Garrisonian
allies.
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