| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: conservation. It has steadily exerted an influence upon all around
it favorable to its own continuance. And to-day it is so strong
that it could exist, not only without law, but even against law.
Custom, manners, morals, religion, are all on its side everywhere
in the South; and when you add the ignorance and servility
of the ex-slave to the intelligence and accustomed authority
of the master, you have the conditions, not out of which slavery
will again grow, but under which it is impossible for the Federal
government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government
be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority,
and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: tyranny three or four days, he was in his turn conspired against and slain.
Or look at certain of our own citizens,--and of their actions we have been
not hearers, but eyewitnesses,--who have desired to obtain military
command: of those who have gained their object, some are even to this day
exiles from the city, while others have lost their lives. And even they
who seem to have fared best, have not only gone through many perils and
terrors during their office, but after their return home they have been
beset by informers worse than they once were by their foes, insomuch that
several of them have wished that they had remained in a private station
rather than have had the glories of command. If, indeed, such perils and
terrors were of profit to the commonwealth, there would be reason in
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: setting down his cup, and laughing,--'by whom?'
'By a man called Dennis--for many years the hangman, and to-morrow
morning the hanged,' returned the locksmith.
Sir John had expected--had been quite certain from the first--that
he would say he had come from Hugh, and was prepared to meet him on
that point. But this answer occasioned him a degree of
astonishment, which, for the moment, he could not, with all his
command of feature, prevent his face from expressing. He quickly
subdued it, however, and said in the same light tone:
'And what does the gentleman require of me? My memory may be at
fault again, but I don't recollect that I ever had the pleasure of
Barnaby Rudge |
