There is a past for which Republicans have indeed no respect,--but it is one of recent date; there is a history from which they refuse to take lessons except for warning and not example,--but it is a history which is not yet written. When the future historian shall study that past and gather materials for writing that history, he will find cause for wonder at the strength of that national vitality which could withstand and survive, not the efforts of Mr. Choate's dreadful reformers, but of an administration calling itself Democratic, which, with the creed of the Ostend Manifesto for its foreign, and the practice of Kansas for its domestic policy, could yet find a scholar and a gentleman like Mr. Choate to defend it.
Mr. Choate charges the Republicans with being incapable of a generalization. They can, at least, generalize so far as this, that, when they find a number of sophistries in an argument, they conclude that the cause which requires their support must be a weak one. One of the most amusing of these in the oration before us is where (using the very same arguments that were urged in favor of that coalition in Massachusetts against the morality of which the then party of Mr. Choate exclaimed so loudly) he extols the merits of Compromise in statesmanship. In support of what he says on this subject, he quotes from a speech of Archbishop Whately a passage in favor of Expediency. It is really too bad, that the Primate of Ireland, of all men living, should be made the abetter in two fallacies. In the first place, Mr. Choate assumes that there are certain deluded persons who affirm that all compromises in politics are wrong. Having stuffed out his man of straw, he proceeds gravely to argue with him, as if he were as cunning of fence as Duns Scotus. One would think, from some of the notions he deems it necessary to combat, that we were living in the time of the Fifth-Monarchy men, and that Captain Venner with his troop was ready to issue from the garrets of Batterymarch Street, to find Armageddon in Dock Square, and the Beast of the Revelation in the Chief of Police. There is no man who believes that the ship of State, any more than an ordinary vessel, can be navigated by the New Testament alone; but neither will be the worse for having it aboard. The Puritans sailed theirs by Deuteronomy, but it was a Deuteronomy qualified by an eye to the main chance. Mr. Choate's syllogism may be stated thus: Some compromises are necessary in order to carry on a free government; but this is a compromise; therefore it is necessary. Here is the first fallacy. The other syllogism runs thus: Expediency is essential in politics; so also is compromise; therefore some particular compromise is expedient. Fallacy number two. The latent application in this part of Mr. Choate's oration is, of course, to Compromises on the Slavery question. We agree with him, that no man of sense will deny that compromise is essential in politics, and especially in our politics. With a single exception, all that he says on this topic is expressed with masterly force and completeness. But when we come to the application of it, the matter assumes another face. Men of sense may, and do, differ as to what _is_ a compromise, or, agreeing in that, they may differ again as to whether it be expedient. For example, if a man, having taken another's cloak, insist on taking his coat also, the denudee, though he might congratulate himself on having been set forward so far on his way toward the natural man of Rousseau, would hardly call the affair a compromise on the part of the denuder. Or again, if his brother with principles should offer to compromise about the coat by taking only half of it, he would be in considerable doubt whether the arrangement were expedient. Now there are many honest people, not as eloquent as Mr. Choate, not as scholarly, and perhaps not more illogical, who firmly believe that our compromises on the question of Slavery have afforded examples of both the species above described. It is not unnatural, therefore, that, while they assent to his general theory, they should protest against his mode of applying it to particulars. They may be incapable of a generalization, (they certainly are, if this be Mr. Choate's notion of one,) but they are incapable also of a deliberate fallacy. We think we find here one of the cases in which his training as an advocate has been of evil effect on his fairness of mind. No more potent lie can be made than of the ashes of truth. A fallacy is dangerous because of the half-truth in it. Swallow a strong dose of pure poison, and the stomach may reject it; but take half as much, mixed with innocent water, and it will do you a mischief. But Mr.