American Citizen

THE RADICAL REFORMERS.

Montaigne, in his charming essay upon vanity, remarks:

"Nothing presses so hard upon a State as innovation. When any piece is out of its place it may be propped; one may obviate the alteration and corruption natural to all things, lest they carry us too far from our beginnings; but, to undertake to new mold so great a mass, and to change the foundations of so vast a building, is for them to do, who, to make clean, rub all out—who reform particular defects by universal confusion—not so desirous of changing as of overthrowing things."

Here is a mirror in which the Radical fanatics of our day may see themselves reflected at full length. They are not so much innovators as destructives. They seem not so desirous of change as of overthrowing things.

Through the besotted blunders of our people, these destructives have been busily at work undermining our constitutional foundations, until that instrument now totters to its fall. They innovated upon slavery until they have destroyed it altogether, and left the poor wretches victims of their mad experiment, so that their last state is infinitely worse than their first. They innovated upon the Constitution, until they have scarce a single guarantee in force. They innovated upon State sovereignty, until they have reduced the States to mere municipal dependencies of the Federal power. The surgeon's end is not to deaden the bad flesh, which is but the beginning of his cure; his view is likewise to fill up the wound with natural flesh, and restore the member to its due state. Our State quacks propose to encourage the gangrene until mortification sets in and carries off the patient.—N. Y. Daily News.