The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics — John Shaqi
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
when he removed the deposits from the national bank. The facts and
fears of one generation often furnish material for nothing but jests
and jeers to that generation's successors; and we who behold a million
of men in arms, fighting for or against the American Union, and all
calling themselves Americans, are astonished when we read or remember
that our immediate predecessors in the political world went to the
verge of madness on the Currency question. Perhaps the men of 1889 may
be equally astonished, when they shall turn to files of newspapers that
were published in 1862, and read therein the details of those events
that now excite so painful an interest in hundreds of thousands of
families. Nothing is so easy as to condemn the past, except the
misjudging of the present, and the failure to comprehend the future.
Men of a very different stamp from the first of the Romans have been
allowed the benefits that come from a rehearing of their causes.
Robespierre, whose deeds are within the memory of many yet living, has
found champions, and it is now admitted by all who can effect that
greatest of conquests, the subjugation of their prejudices, that he was
an honest fanatic, a man of iron will, but of small intellect, who had
the misfortune, the greatest that can fall to the lot of humanity, to
be placed by the force of circumstances in a position which would have
tried the soundest of heads, even had that head been united with the
purest of hearts. But the apologists of "the sea-green incorruptible,"
it must be admitted, have not been very successful, as the sence of
mankind revolts at indiscriminate murder, even when the murderer's
hands have no other stain than that which comes from blood,--for that
is a stain which will not "out"; not even printer's ink can erase or
cover it; and the attorney of Arras must remain the Raw-Head and
Bloody-Bones of history. Benedict Arnold has found no direct defender
or apologist; but those readers who are unable to see how forcibly
recent writers have dwelt upon the better points of his character and
career, while they have not been insensible to the provocations he
received, must have read very carelessly and uncritically indeed. Mr.
Paget has all but whitewashed Marlborough, and has shaken many men's
faith in the justice of Lord Macauley's judgement and in the accuracy
of his assertions. Richard III., by all who can look through the clouds
raised by Shakespeare over English history of the fifteenth century, is
admitted to have been a much better man and ruler than were the average
of British monarchs from the Conquest to the Revolution, thanks to the
labors of Horace Walpole and Caroline Halsted, who, however, have only
followed in the path struck out by Sir George Buck at a much earlier
period. The case of Mary Stuart still remains unsettled, and bids fair
to be the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of history; but this is owing to
the circumstance that that unfortunate queen is so closely associated
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