His first cry to the Divinity would have been to respect that ancient chaos.”  But even to conservatives of this class, the attempt to extend Slavery, though really in the order of its natural development, must still have appeared a monstrous innovation, and they were bound to oppose the Marats and Robespierres of despotism who were busy in the bad work.  Indeed, in our country, conservatism, through the presence of Slavery, has inverted its usual order.  In other countries, the radical of one century is the conservative of the next; in ours, the conservative of one generation is the radical of the next.  The American conservative of 1790 is the so-called fanatic of 1820; the conservative of 1820 is the fanatic of 1856.  The American conservative, indeed, descended the stairs of compromise until his descent into utter abnegation of all that civilized humanity holds dear was arrested by the Rebellion.  And the reason of this strange inversion of conservative principles was, that the movement of Slavery is towards barbarism, while the movement of all countries in which labor is not positively chattellized is towards freedom and civilization.  True conservatism, it must never be forgotten, is the refusal to give up a positive, though imperfect good, for a possible, but uncertain improvement:  in the United States it has been misused to denote the cowardly surrender of a positive good from a fear to resist the innovations of an advancing evil and wrong.

There was, therefore, little danger that Slavery would be extended through the conscious thought and will of the people, but there was danger that its extension might, somehow or other, occur.  Misconception of the question, devotion to party or the memory of party, prejudice against the men who more immediately represented the Anti-Slavery principle, might make the people unconsciously slide into this crime.  And it must be said that for the divisions in the Free States as to the mode in which the free sentiment of the people should operate the strictly Anti-Slavery men were to some extent responsible.  It is difficult to convince an ardent reformer that the principle for which he contends, being impersonal, should be purified from the passions and whims of his own personality.  The more fervid he is, the more he is identified in the public mind with his cause; and, in a large view, he is bound not merely to defend his cause, but to see that the cause, through him, does not become offensive.  Men are ever ready to dodge disagreeable duties by converting questions of principles into criticisms on the men who represent principles; and the men who represent principles should therefore look to it that they make no needless enemies and give no needless shock to public opinion for the purpose of pushing pet opinions, wreaking personal grudges, or gratifying individual antipathies.  The artillery of the North has heretofore played altogether too much on Northerners.