uld change with time, and with them
must necessarily change the laws that govern their actions. Law and
government must keep pace with the progress of humanity, else the nation
itself becomes effete, superannuated, deteriorated. Many errors there
doubtless are in our system, taking their rise as well in the very
commencement of our existence as from the fluctuations of society. Of
these, some have hitherto lain inert and concealed, from the very lack
of circumstances to induce their development, and from the lack of a
field of action. Others have worked so slowly and insidiously as to have
remained totally concealed from our view, as well from the fact of their
never having as yet been productive of any decided and palpable evil
effect, as from our becoming gradually accustomed to them and their
workings, and from the preoccupation of the public mind with more
exciting questions. But in all times of popular excitement and tumult,
of revolutionary ideas and attempted violent reform, errors spring forth
in dazzling brightness from the darkness of the past, like Minerva from
the brain of Jove, armed with the full panoply of destructive war,
clothed in the garb of maturity, and endowed with gigantic strength.
Such has been the case in our day. As the early spring sun, warming the
long-frozen soil and heating the foul moistures of the earth, brings to
life and to the surface of the ground swarming myriads of noxious
insects and reptiles, who, during the long winter months, have slept
silent and torpid far down within the oozy depths, and hatches the
thrice-told myriads of eggs deposited in seasons passed away, and which
have long waited for his life-giving influence to pour forth their
swarming millions to the upper air; even so this war has hatched the
eggs of error, and brought forth the torpid defects of long gone-by
decades, affording them a broad field of operation in their work of
destruction; while it has at the same time torn away the veil which has
hitherto blinded our eyes, and shown us, in the disasters of to-day, the
culmination of the evil effects of causes which have for long years been
working secretly at the very core of the body politic. But not alone has
it brought forth error and corruption; for the same harsh influence has
also revivified the seeds of virtue and awakened the sleeping lion of
justice, uprightness, and national honor, which shall act as healthful
counterbalances to all the evil, and supplant