rs a
resemblance to the lamentation of Godkin's later years. "The civil war
of '61," wrote Ticknor, "has made a great gulf between what happened
before it in our century and what has happened since, or what is likely
to happen hereafter. It does not seem to me as if I were living in the
country in which I was born, or in which I received whatever I ever got
of political education or principles. Webster seems to have been the
last of the Romans."[206]

In 1868 Godkin was an optimist, having a cogent answer to all gloomy
predictions; from 1895 to 1902 he was a pessimist; yet reasons just as
strong may be adduced for considering the future of the country secure
in the later as were urged in the earlier period. But as Godkin grew
older, he became a moral censor, and it is characteristic of censors to
exaggerate both the evil of the present and the good of the past. Thus
in 1899 he wrote of the years 1857-1860: "The air was full of the real
Americanism. The American gospel was on people's lips and was growing
with fervor. Force was worshiped, but it was moral force: it was the
force of reason, of humanity, of human equality, of a good example. The
abolitionist gospel seemed to be permeating the views of the American
people, and overturning and destroying the last remaining traditions of
the old-world public morality. It was really what might be called the
golden age of America."[207] These were the days of slavery. James
Buchanan was President. The internal policy of the party in power was
expressed in the Dred Scott decision and the attempt to force slavery on
Kansas; the foreign policy, in the Ostend Manifesto, which declared that
if Spain would not sell Cuba, the United States would take it by force.
The rule in the civil service was, "to the victors belong the spoils."
And New York City, where Godkin resided, had for its mayor Fernando
Wood.

In this somewhat rambling paper I have subjected Godkin to a severe test
by a contrast of his public and private utterances covering many years,
not however with the intention of accusing him of inconsistency. Ferrero
writes that historians of our day find it easy to expose the
contradictions of Cicero, but they forget that probably as much could
be said of his contemporaries, if we possessed also their private
correspondence. Similarly, it is a pertinent question how many
journalists and how many public men would stand as well as Godkin in
this matter of consistency if we possess