But England Also Was At A
Discount In Boston, And Mr. Everett Was Speaking To A Boston
Audience.
They are sending us their advice across the water, said
Mr. Everett.
And what is their advice to us? That we should come
down from the high place we have built for ourselves, and be even
as they are. They screech at us from the low depths in which they
are wallowng in their misery, and call on us to join them in their
wretchedness. I am not quoting Mr. Everett's very words, for I
have not them by me; but I am not making them stronger, nor so
strong as he made them. As I thought of Mr. Everett's reputation,
and of his years of study, of his long political life and
unsurpassed sources of information, I could not but grieve heartily
when I heard such words fall from him. I could not but ask myself
whether it were impossible that under the present circumstances of
her constitution this great nation of America should produce an
honest, high-minded statesman. When Lincoln and Hamlin, the
existing President and Vice-President of the States, were in 1860
as yet but the candidates of the Republican party, Bell and Everett
also were the candidates of the old Whig, conservative party.
Their express theory was this - that the question of slavery should
not be touched. Their purpose was to crush agitation and restore
harmony by an impartial balance between the North and South: a fine
purpose - the finest of all purposes, had it been practicable.
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