John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[96] and dogmatic. They show a great desire — a sincere hope for the amelioration of the human lot everywhere. All honest efforts to that end undoubtedly had his support, but there was a note of uncertainty throughout his writings based upon the undeniable fact that hope is a word implying doubt, and that he was not without apprehensions.

The revolution in Austria was at this time still claiming the attention and exciting the interest of the world. Bern, the Polish hero, was fighting the battle of the Hungarians in the field, while Kossuth was pleading their cause in the press and on the forum with marvellous eloquence. Dana, true to his sympathies, gave them unstinted praise in the Tribune. His pen was ever true to the call of the downtrodden and oppressed. Liberty was the supreme blessing of mankind then, as it always remained, to him, and this was as true in the case of an individual as in the case of a race or nation. He looked upon France at that time as “the sheet-anchor of the liberties of the world,” and regarded the issues of the war in Hungary as affecting the interests of all mankind. With deep intensity of feeling, he prayed, “May God prosper the right.” He criticised and condemned the Russian army, which had gone to the assistance of the Austrian government against its insurgent subjects, as “the bane of human liberty,” and “the heartless tool of tyranny and absolutism.” Indeed, no one can read his Tribune editorials on these subjects without being deeply impressed by the unselfish sympathy with which he always advocated the cause of the people as against the customary restrictions upon their freedom, no matter whence they came. Whatever 1may be said against his views on the broader questions of social and governmental reform, and the means by which they were to be obtained, it is evident that his ideas of personal and popular liberty rested upon a solidly basis. That he sympathized deeply with the European revolutions