The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Of course, Sectionalism is not forgotten. The pumpkin-lantern, that
had performed so many offices of alarm, though a little wrinkled now,
was too valuable a stage-property to be neglected. In the hands of so
skilful an operator, its slender body flutters voluminous with new
folds of inexpensive cotton, and its eyes glare with the baleful
terrors of unlimited tallow. Mr. Choate honestly confesses that
sectional jealousies are coeval with the country itself, but it is
only as fomented by Anti-slavery-extension that he finds them
dreadful. When South Carolina threatened disunion unless the Tariff of
the party to which Mr. Choate then belonged were modified, did he
think it necessary for the Protectionists to surrender their policy?
There is not, and there never was, any party numerically considerable
at the North, in favor of disunion. Were homilies on fraternal
concessions the things to heal this breach, the South is the fitting
place for their delivery; but mouth-glue, however useful to stick
slight matters together, is not the cement with which confederacies
are bound to a common centre. There must be the gravitation of
interest as well as of honor and duty. We wonder that the parallel
case of Scotland and England did not occur to Mr. Choate, in speaking
upon this point. Scotland was clamorous and England jealously
contemptuous, for nearly a century. Twice since the union, the land
of cakes has been in rebellion; but as long as a pound Scots was only
a twentieth part of a pound English,--as long as the treasury was
filled chiefly from south the Tweed, and the sons of poor and proud
Scottish lairds could make glittering abstractions from it,--as long
as place was to be won or hoped for,--there was no danger. So with
us,--though Jacob and Esau quarrelled already in the womb, yet, so
long as the weaker and more politic brother can get the elder
brother's portion, and simple Esau hunts his whales and pierces his
untrodden forests, content with his mess of pottage,--honestly abiding
by his bargain, though a little puzzled at its terms,--we think that
fratricide, or the sincere thought of it, is very far off.
* * * * *
We should be glad to extract some passages of peculiar force and
beauty,--such as that where Mr. Choate rebukes the undue haste of
reformers, and calls to mind the slow development and longevity of
states and ideas. But our duty is the less pleasing one of pointing to
some of the sophistries of the argument and some of the ill-advised
ebullitions of the orator. We leave his exegesis of "Render unto
Cæsar" to answer itself; but what can be worse than this,--worse in
taste, in temper, in reason?
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