Quote of the Day: Results May Not Be as Expected

 

“The Fates are just: they give us but our own;
Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.”

John Greenleaf Whittier, To a Southern Statesman (1864)

This quote would seem trite and pitiless at the first glance.  We all know many who have suffered through no fault of their own.  No doubt the author had known more than one young patriot from Amesbury who now lay in a grave far from home, and as an abolitionist, he no doubt felt the horrendous injustice of chattel slavery was undeserved by those unfortunate souls trapped in bondage.  Life is not fair to people.

What did he mean, then?  I believe the key is in his audience and the context.  He is writing to a Southern Statesman who has witnessed the ruin of his way of life. Any man could feel the tide of war shift toward the Blue and against the Gray.  Could they see what was to come, with the Radical Reconstruction and years of occupation government?  And it started with the choice to depend on slavery and make it a focus of their culture.

Whittier was referring to the fate of nations and groups.  The United States of America, and especially the states rebelling as the Confederacy, had sown with hubris, and Nemesis came calling.  Eventually, the contradictions of a nation half-slave and half-free could not be sustained.  Then began the greatest slaughter of Americans in history and the crushing of the Southern Way of Life.

When we see the Left stoking the flames of civil unrest and political violence, does it ever cross their minds that the Birkenstock may someday be on the other foot? They are legendary in their hubris — it is already coming back to haunt them. Civility in politics, if it was ever alive, is most certainly dead now. If people in America give up on elections and the government, they will turn to less pleasant means to change the political leadership. Once people believe their livelihoods and families are no longer safe, the greatest power of the Left will evaporate.

And as Nemesis comes closer to them with the sound of gunfire, will they wonder at how they fell from such heights of power?

Published in History
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  1. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    Long day today, in more ways than one.


    This entry is part of our Quote of the Day series. We have many openings on the  October Schedule for your wisdom. We’ve even include tips for finding great quotes. It’s the easiest way to start a Ricochet conversation, so why not sign up today?

    • #1
  2. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    the Birkenstock may someday be on the other foot? 

    Hahaha! But seriously, this is something I’ve been thinking of all week, but not expressing as well as Whittier did. And Kavanaugh expressed it today too when he said they will reap the whirlwind. They’re so blinded with rage and with the disbelief and frustration that they lost the election that they’ve descended into madness.

     

    • #2
  3. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    the Birkenstock may someday be on the other foot?

    Hahaha! But seriously, this is something I’ve been thinking of all week, but not expressing as well as Whittier did. And Kavanaugh expressed it today too when he said they will reap the whirlwind. They’re so blinded with rage and with the disbelief and frustration that they lost the election that they’ve descended into madness.

    The best Republicans hinted at one or more of their own members fanning the wind. The whirlwind comes so fast that a No voter may see his own family caught up, at which point I don’t think we’ll hear that is just the imperfect process.

    • #3
  4. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    Ah, for the days of reasonable Democrats:

    Zell Miller, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ed Koch, etc.

    The kind that would show up on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line. Of course, he had some real wackos like Francis Fox Piven, of the Cloward–Piven strategy.

    • #4
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