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From the New Haven Register, RADICAL RAID ON WEBBSTER's DICTIONARY. The Milledgeville (Ga.) federal Union admits into its columns a de fence of what is called “Webster's New Dictionary,” from the criticisms of this journal, which were published by us some months ago, showing that the text of Webster had been tampered within the interests of the Radical party. The writer in the Federal Union claims to be a Democrat, and yet fails to see (or so pretends at least) that the changes in the original defi nitions of such words as Constitution, Congress and compact, have any political significance or motive, such as was at tributed by us to the manipulators of that work. We are faid to believe that the Editors of the Union did not give the article in question that care ful consideration due to the subject; otherwise, they would most emphati cally have dissented from the premises and conclusion of the writer. We have charged, and still charge, that the manipulators of Webster's new Dictionary have been guilty of a gross perversion of the text of that great work, in order to suit it to the pro gressive ideas of the Radicals, and es pecially to suit it to the doctrines of the Consolidationists in the Radical party. The editor of the new edition gives us the names of the two gentlemen who performed the work of revising “the definitions of the principal words, not scientific or technical,” and per forms himself the gratuitous labor, we think, of informing us that this particular branch of revision has been so well done that Dr. Webster him self, were he now living, and ‘fully possessed of the principles accepted by” such modern philologists and lexi cographers as the two distinguished gentlemen in question, would most readily accept and approve it at their hands! This gratuitous assurance on the part of the editor of the new Dic tionary, need not be accepted cum grano sahis, but taken in that peculiar “Pickwickian sense’ to which it would be a work of supererogation to cavil. We take it for granted that the emasculations of Webster, and the disa critical eliminations of the two Repub lican Professors who had this work in hand, are in accordance with the “principles” accepted by then; and it is just this feature of the revision that we, as public journalists, condemn. These eliminations have been made, not on any philological principles, or with a view to etymological accuracy, but in the interests of the party whose “principles” are “accepted by” then and the work has been ‘so bunglingly and inaccurately done, in some in stances, that the vones of the great lex icographer ought to rattle in tha cof fin, or “Grimly stalk the classic halls of Yale,’ while such murder of the “good King’s English” is going on. . . We pass over the words Constitution, Congress and compact, which we have already shown to have been grossly tampered with, definitionally, and take up a few other words which evince the same political armus on the part of the revisionists. The defini tion which Webster gives of a Lepub lic, is as follows: “A State in which the exercise of sovereign power is lodged (/. ¢. placed for preservation or keeping.) in rep resentatives elected by the people. 4 differs from a democracy, in which the people exercise the powers of sovereignty in person.” This definition undergoes the fol lowing emasculation and perversion, in the hands of the revisionists: “Republic:—A State in which the sovereign power is exercised by repre sentatives elected by the people.” It will be seen here that the defini tion of Webster is in harmony with the true theory of our Government, and recognizes the people as delegating the exercise of sovereign power to their representatives. The only diference between a republic and a democracy, a cording to Webster’s definition, is the manner in which the sovereign power of the people is exercized; in the one case, it is done directly; in the other, indirectly. But these revisionists, who hail from the great Republic of Letters, where the sovereign power of emascu lating the English language is pre sumed to be se@derived, not delega ted, can tolerate no such definition of a Republic. According to their no tion, it is a State in which sovereign power is exercised, not the exercise of it delegated by the people. As the King of England ascends the throne, and exercises at once the high preroga tives of the Crown, so our Barlical Congressmen are inherently invested with sovereign power the monuent they are elected by the people. Sov ereignty comes from the high official position they occupy, just as the kir ty prerogatives come from the investi ture of the Crown! It is enough to say that this is not, never has been, and never will be (except by politi cal knaves and philological junk heads,) the accepted theory of our Govern ment. The definition which Webster gives of a State, is as follows: “A political body or body politic; the whole body of people united un der one government, whatever may be the form of government. More usually the word signifies a political body governed by representatives; a commonwealth; as the Laws of Greece; the Sates of America.” This particular branch of Webster's definition has been tortured into this shape by the philological neophytes having his great work in charge: “State.—In the United States, one of the commonwealths or bodies poli tic, the people of which make up the whole body of the nation, and which, under the national Constitution, stand in cer tain specified relations with the wa r-
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Milledgeville Federal Union
Milledgeville, Georgia, US
Tue, Sep 29, 1868
Page 2
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CA 24 Jun 2026
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