But there is
still another view, and probably as wise a one. It looks upon slavery as
one of those evils which divine Providence does not leave to be remedied
by human contrivances, but which, in its own good time, by some means
impossible to be anticipated, but of the simplest and easiest operation,
when all its uses shall have been fulfilled, it causes to vanish like a
dream. There is no instance, in all history, of the human will and
intellect having perfected any great moral reform by methods which it
adapted to that end; but the progress of the world, at every step, leaves
some evil or wrong on the path behind it, which the wisest of mankind, of
their own set purpose, could never have found the way to rectify.
Whatever contributes to the great cause of good, contributes to all its
subdivisions and varieties; and, on this score, the lover of his race,
the enthusiast, the philanthropist of whatever theory, might lend his aid
to put a man, like the one before us, into the leadership of the world's
affairs.
How firm and conscientious was General Pierce's support of The Compromise
may be estimated from his conduct in reference to the Reverend John
Atwood. In the foregoing pages it has come oftener in our way to
illustrate the bland and prepossessing features of General Pierce's
character, than the sterner ones which must necessarily form the bones,
so to speak, the massive skeleton, of any man who retains an upright
attitude amidst the sinister influences of public life.
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