It Is To Be Lamented; But The Evil Admits, I
Think, Of Easy Repair.
It has happened at a period of unwonted
difficulty, when the minds of men were intent rather on the support
of that nationality which guarantees their liberties, than on the
enjoyment of those liberties themselves, and the fault may be
pardoned if it be acknowledged.
But it is essential that it should
be acknowledged. In such a matter as that there should at any rate
be no doubt. Now, in this very year of the rebellion, it may be
well that no clamor against government should arise from the people,
and thus add to the difficulties of the nation. But it will be bad,
indeed, for the nation if such a fault shall have been committed by
this government and shall be allowed to pass unacknowledged,
unrebuked - as though it were a virtue and no fault. I cannot but
think that the time will soon come in which Mr. Seward's reading of
the Constitution and Mr. Lincoln's assumption of illegal power under
that reading will receive a different construction in the States
than that put upon it by Mr. Binney.
But I have admitted that the Constitution itself is not perfect. It
seems to me that it requires to be amended on two separate points -
especially on two; and I cannot but acknowledge that there would be
great difficulty in making such amendments. That matter of direct
taxation is the first. As to that I shall speak again in referring
to the financial position of the country.
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