Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Peter makes the leap to say that Henry Brownson, the son of Orestes Brownson, ended up by 1897 agreeing with Stonewall Jackson and Jackson’s spiritual mentor, Robert Lewis Dabney. Although Henry was regarded as a true friend of the black man he believed the false ideology that created their political freedom would prove to be the downfall of the American experiment. Here is a quote in his famous speech at Notre Dame in 1897.
It will take centuries to restore, if it ever restored, our political constitution to its original soundness, not because slavery is abolished and the freedmen are invested with the right of suffrage and eligibility, but owing to the way in which it was done and the principles and opinions appealed to in doing it. The popular mind has been corrupted, false and dangerous principles have been adopted, popular opinion has been placed above law, and party above the country. There is no basis for government possible under the doctrines which have become current and acted upon. Not only have the rights of the states been trampled on, obliterated, in fact, and the republic centralized, but the will of the people for the time being is made supreme, which means in practice, the majority for the time, owned and controlled by the business interests and corporations of the country, may govern as they please.
Universal suffrage and eligibility exclude women. To include them would only aggravate the evil. Women act from sentiment, not reason, and it is their sentiment of humanity, which they in the abolition movement placed above the law, above the constitution, and which was directed by no infallible guide, and principally caused the evil.
Peter makes the leap to say that Henry Brownson, the son of Orestes Brownson, ended up by 1897 agreeing with Stonewall Jackson and Jackson’s spiritual mentor, Robert Lewis Dabney. Although Henry was regarded as a true friend of the black man he believed the false ideology that created their political freedom would prove to be the downfall of the American experiment. Here is a quote in his famous speech at Notre Dame in 1897.
It will take centuries to restore, if it ever restored, our political constitution to its original soundness, not because slavery is abolished and the freedmen are invested with the right of suffrage and eligibility, but owing to the way in which it was done and the principles and opinions appealed to in doing it. The popular mind has been corrupted, false and dangerous principles have been adopted, popular opinion has been placed above law, and party above the country. There is no basis for government possible under the doctrines which have become current and acted upon. Not only have the rights of the states been trampled on, obliterated, in fact, and the republic centralized, but the will of the people for the time being is made supreme, which means in practice, the majority for the time, owned and controlled by the business interests and corporations of the country, may govern as they please.
Universal suffrage and eligibility exclude women. To include them would only aggravate the evil. Women act from sentiment, not reason, and it is their sentiment of humanity, which they in the abolition movement placed above the law, above the constitution, and which was directed by no infallible guide, and principally caused the evil.
