[36] Mr. Adams wrote, in his diary, November, 1782, “Mr. Jay don’t like any Frenchman. The Marquis de la Fayette is clever, but he is a Frenchman.”
[37] Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, V. viii, p. 209.
[38] Contemplate the still greater blunder of our civil war. It was forced upon the nation by the slave traders, that they might perpetuate slavery. And now after the infliction of woes which no finite imagination can gauge, these very slave-holders declare with one voice, that nothing would induce them to reinstate the execrable institution. How much misery would have been averted, and what a comparative paradise would our southern country now have been, if before, instead of after the war, the oppressed had been allowed to go free!
[39] Mr. Parton undoubtedly suggested the true reason for this strange refusal to seek divine guidance. He writes,
“I think it not improbable that the cause of this opposition to a proposal so seldom negatived in the United States, was the prevalence in the Convention of the French tone of feeling with regard to religious observances. If so, it was the more remarkable to see the aged Franklin, who was a deist at fifteen, and had just returned from France, coming back to the sentiments of his ancestors.”—Parton’s Franklin Vol. 2, p. 575.
[40] This reminds us of the exclamation of the Emperor Titus, who, at the close of a day in which he could not perceive that he had done any good, exclaimed, sadly, “Perdidi Diem.” I have lost a day. Beautifully has the sentiment been expressed in the words, which it would be well for all to treasure up,
“Count that day lost, whose low descending sun,
Views at thy hand no worthy action done.”
Transcriber’s Note:
Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters’ errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author’s words and intent.