Excerpt from The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, Vol. 16: Collected and Arranged; Containing the Second Part of the Political Writings Our great danger lies in the radical tendency which has become so wide, deep, and active in the American people. We have, to a great extent, ceased to regard any thing as sacred 01 Degrees venerable; we spurn what is old war against what is fixed; and labor to set all religious, domestic, and social institutions afloat-on the wild and tumultuous sea of speculation and experiment. Nothing has hitherto gone right; nothing has been achieved that is worth retaining; and man and Providence have thus far done nothing but commit one continued series of blunders. All things are to be reconstructed the world is to be recast, and by our own wisdom and strength. We must borrow no light from the past, adopt none of its maxims, and take no data from its experience. Even language itself, which only embodies the thoughts, convictions, sentiments, hopes, affections, and aspirations of the race, cannot serve as a medium of inter course between man and man. I t is not safe to affirm that black is black, for the word black only names an idea which the past entertained, and most likely a false idea. With such a tendency, wide and deer) strong and active, we can\v A It A N I) loyalty. 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.