As for this new spirit of the age that is doing so much among us, I am not
twaddler enough to complain of all change, for I know that many of these
changes have had the most beneficial effects. I am far from thinking that
domestic slavery, as it once existed at Clawbonny, is a picture of
domestic slavery as it existed throughout the land; but I do believe that
the institution, as it was formerly known in New York, was quite as much
to the disadvantage of the white man, as to that of the black. There was
always something of the patriarchal character in one of our households,
previously to the change in the laws; and the relation of master and
slave, in old, permanent families, in which plenty was no stranger, had
ever more or less of that which was respectable and endearing. It is not
so much in relation to the abolition spirit, (if it would only confine its
exertions to communities over which it may happen to possess some right of
control,) that I feel alarmed as in reference to a certain spirit, which
appears to think there always must be more and more change, and that in
connection with any specific interest, whatever may have been its
advancement under previous _regimes_; nothing in social life being fully
developed, according to the creed of these movement philosophers. Now, in
my view of the matter, the two most dangerous of all parties in a state,
are that which sets up conservatism as its standard, and that which sets
up progress: the one is for preserving things of which it would be better
to be rid, while the other crushes all that is necessary and useful in its
headlong course. I now speak of these opposing principles, as they are
marshalled in _parties_, opposition giving pertinacity and violence to
each. No sane man can doubt that, in the progress of events, much is
produced that ought to be retained, and much generated that it would be
wiser to reject. He, alone, is the safe and wise legislator, who knows
how, and when, to make the proper distinctions. As for conservatism,
Lafayette once characterized it excellently well, in one of his happiest
hits in the tribune. "Gentlemen talk of the just medium (_juste milieu_)"
he said, "as if it embraced a clear political creed. We all know what the
just medium is, as relates to any particular question; it is simply the
truth, as it is connected with that question. But when gentlemen say, that
they belong to the _juste milieu_, as a _party_, and that they intend to
stee