The Lesson of the Hour Lecture of Wendell Phillips, Delivered at Brooklyn, Tuesday Evening, November 1, 1859 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Lesson of the Hour: Lecture of Wendell Phillips, Delivered at Brooklyn, Tuesday Evening, November 1, 1859 It seems to me the idea ofour civilization - under lying all American life-z - is, that we do not need any protector. We need no safeguard. Not only the inevitable, but the best, power this side of the ocean, is the unfettered average common sense of the masses. Institutions, as we are accustomed to call them, are but pasteboard, and intended to be against the thought of the street. Statutes are mere mile stones, telling how far yesterday's thought had trav elled; and the talk of the sidewalk to-day is the law of the land. Somewhat briefly stated, such is the idea of American civilization uncompromising faith - in the average selfishness, if you choose of all classes, neutralizing each other, and tending toward that fair play that Saxons love. It seems to me that, on all questions, we dread thought; We shrink behind something we acknowledge ourselves unequal to the sublime faith of our fathers and the exhibition of the last twenty years and of the present state of public affairs is, that flmerieans dread to look their real position in the itco. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.