We have no desire to impugn the motives of those who
consider themselves conservative members of the Society; we believe them
to be honest in their convictions, or their want of them; but we think
they have mistaken notions as to what conservatism is, and that they are
wrong in supposing it to consist in refusing to wipe away the film on
their spectacle-glasses which prevents their seeing the handwriting on the
wall, or in conserving reverently the barnacles on their ship's bottom and
the dry-rot in its knees. We yield to none of them in reverence for the
Past; it is there only that the imagination can find repose and seclusion;
there dwells that silent majority whose experience guides our action and
whose wisdom shapes our thought in spite of ourselves;--but it is not
length of days that can make evil reverend, nor persistence in
inconsistency that can give it the power or the claim of orderly
precedent. Wrong, though its title-deeds go back to the days of Sodom, is
by nature a thing of yesterday,--while the right, of which we became
conscious but an hour ago, is more ancient than the stars, and of the
essence of Heaven. If it were proposed to establish Slavery to-morrow,
should we have more patience with its patriarchal argument than with the
parallel claim of Mormonism? That Slavery is old is but its greater
condemnation; that we have tolerated it so long, the strongest plea for
our doing so no longer.
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