“It falls far short of my wishes, but . . . I believe it is all that can be obtained in the present state of public opinion. . . . I will take all I can get in the cause of humanity and leave it to be perfected by better men in better times.” Shortly before final passage, Stevens again expressed disappointment, in an eloquent statement of his political creed:
In my youth, in my manhood, in my old age, I had fondly dreamed that when any fortunate chance should have broken up for awhile the foundation ofour institutions, and released us from obligations the most tyrannical that ever man imposed in the name of freedom, that the intelligent, pure and just men of this republic . . . would have so remodeled all our institutions as to have freed them from every vestige of human oppression, of inequality of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor, and the superior caste of the rich. . . . This bright dream has vanished, “like the baseless fabric of a vision.” I find that we shall be obliged to be content with patching upthe worst portions of the ancient edifice, and leaving it, in many of its parts, to be swept through by . . . the storms of despotism. Do you inquire why . . . I accept so imperfecta proposition? I answer, because I live among men and not among angels.
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