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THE 
 
 AMERICAN REPUBLIC 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT PARKERSBURG, W. Va., 
 
 July 4TH, 1867. 
 
 Bv M. C. C. CHURCH. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 PARKERSBURG, W. Va. 
 
 1867. 
 
1 Z^(^ 
 
 University Pkkss : W'kh ii, Migelow, & Co., 
 
 C\M15KIU(_,li. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 I AM to speak to you to-day of the American 
 Republic. 
 Since the advent of the Saviour of manlcind, there 
 has been a new spirit introduced into the life of 
 humanity. Before that event, man, divorced from his 
 God and from heaven, had exhausted the whole round 
 of speculation in the vain attempt to find a resting- 
 place for the soul. The superstitious worship of 
 Nature, in all her manifold forms and features, had 
 taken the place of the worship of the true God. 
 The government of force and of fraud held all men 
 in vassalage. The baser appetites dominated the 
 higher or spiritual nature ; and, when Christ came, 
 humanity had reached the lowest point of the mere 
 natural man. Our common nature was almost ex- 
 hausted of the Divine life, and God alone saved it 
 from extinction. From Christ went forth a new re- 
 generating influence, — an influence supplied by the 
 mighty power of his own life. From Him, — from 
 this centre-point, — from this tap-root, — the tree of 
 human salvation and progress commenced to grow. 
 His blood supplied the sap of the root, trunk, and 
 branches of this great tree. The leaven of his life 
 has worked and worked until the moving mass of 
 
human nature is being pervaded by his Divine 
 breath, and the Truth is upbuilding the fabric of 
 our fallen humanity into His own glorious image. 
 As It takes form in external life, governments, no 
 less than individuals, are reduced to its Divine order 
 of Justice, Liberty, and Law. The spirit of that lite 
 is working everywhere ; no power can resist it, no 
 hand can stay it, until its victories are complete, and 
 all men acknowledge the power of its authority. 
 
 Now, what was this life ? What was this force ? 
 What was the influence that went forth from this Di- 
 vine personality.^ Lidependent of the scholasticism 
 which hangs over this entire subject, the life of Christ 
 was Divinely and supremely human. It was redolent 
 with all human sympathy ; it was the incarnation of 
 all human dignity; the sweetness of all huiTian mod- 
 esty; the grandeur of all human courage; the One 
 who held his place at the centre of all our life; the 
 Bearer of its woes, the Friend of the friendless, the 
 Comforter of the comfortless, — the power of God to 
 the salvation of man. 
 
 Commencing His ministry among the proudest, the 
 most debased, the most bigoted people that ever lived, 
 he gave a daily example of heroism, of modesty, and of 
 love, which has never been surpassed. In three years 
 he gathered around his person a few followers to whom 
 he committed the great truths of his new kingdom, — 
 a kingdom of righteousness and of peace. The two 
 fundamental truths which he lived, and which he 
 taught by word and by example, and the two funda- 
 mental truths which he committed to his followers, 
 were, the Universal Brotherhood of Man, and the Universal 
 Fatherhood of God ; himself being the exemplar of both. 
 
Before Christ, no people, no nation, had heard so 
 comprehensive a doctrine and so universal a sympa- 
 thy. Mine and thine, — my family, m nation, my 
 selfish aggrandizement, with their withering and blight- 
 ing influences, — had usurped the place of this Divine 
 charity. No unity anywhere, — no broad brotherhood 
 of feeling swelling from the base to the summit of 
 humanity's temple. So intensified had the feeling of 
 caste become, so powerful had the intense feeling of 
 selfishness become, that it was almost impossible for 
 the disciples of the Lord to understand his meaning 
 until they had been endued with wisdom from on 
 high. Born Jews, they had been taught that they had 
 Moses and the Prophets; that they were a peculiar 
 people, — the very conservators of the Divine presence 
 upon earth ; the chosen of God, anci therefore a little 
 better than their Gentile neighbors. The spirit of ex- 
 clusiveness and caste was born into their very marrow 
 and blood. They could not think that God had any 
 care over the outside world ; or that the Messiah of 
 their imaginations could eat with publicans and sin- 
 ners, and go about doing good, even on the Jewish 
 Sabbath day. Christ, no doubt, seemed to the de- 
 vout Jews of his day as a great innovator; a blas- 
 phemer; a Sabbath-breaker ; an iconoclast. To their 
 exclusive culture, he was the destroyer of the Law 
 which they held sacred : he was a leveller, who came 
 to teach that all men were brethren, — that all men had 
 a common Father. He delighted to associate with 
 those whom society cast out of its virtuous bosom 
 as pariahs and sinners. He awoke in degraded wo- 
 manhood longings after a higher and purer life, and 
 forgave the sins which crushed the soul. He quick- 
 
ened the conscience of hard-hearted avarice, and made 
 it disgorge its unrighteous treasure. He inspired all 
 who came into his presence with a sense of the dig- 
 nity which is veiled under all human nature. He pro- 
 claimed the great fact of the immortality of the soul, 
 and that it was more priceless and precious than rubies, 
 and more to be esteemed than his own crown, which he 
 willincrly laid aside to become the servant of servants. 
 
 Jesus Christ was, and is, the Divine Man. In him 
 we behold the possibilities of human nature, when he is 
 enthroned in the conscience, in the will, and in the un- 
 derstanding of the race. As he stooci alone in Judaea, 
 proclaiming the divinity of his mission, he was the 
 prophecy of a redeemed humanity, as it shall finally 
 stand when he completes his work of restoration. He 
 was the " beginning of the creation of God." We see 
 in him, as he stood in that darkest period of the 
 world's history, the Fypal Man ot the new race, — its 
 founder, father, and friend. From and in him were 
 the vast future; and, as the silent influences of that life 
 passeci into the ages, we have the fruition of the Chris- 
 -■tian Church, T/ie New Christian Age. The splendor of 
 that life now shines into all hearts, awaking the echoes 
 of a long-lost, but true and returning faith, — the 
 Brotherhood of Man, and the Fatherhood of God. As 
 he comes, through his Spirit, he meets the same diffi- 
 culties, he finds the same foes. He wars against the 
 same spirit of caste which is born of Phariseeism and 
 Sadduceeism,* — the spirit which enslaves the body no 
 less than the mind ; the spirit which believes that 
 God's image is shared by a few; the spirit which be- 
 lieves that one class was made to serve, and an- 
 other class was made to rule. He finds bloated in- 
 
7 
 
 diligence, hardened crime, cruel hate, lustful pride, and 
 infernal tyranny and greedy avarice everywhere warring 
 against his spirit of lowly meekness, sweet and tender 
 charity, holy and divine manhood, and sacred inno- 
 cence. He is crucified now, as of olci, in the hearts of 
 his professed children, and between the two thieves 
 represented in a corrupt Church and in a corrupt 
 State. 
 
 Our prevalent Christianity, friends, is too often 
 the mere echo of an effete and worn-out Judaism. 
 We are slaves to law and custom, and the conven- 
 tionalities of human life. We have not the free- 
 born spontaneity of the spirit which was manifested 
 through the Christ. We are puling babes instead of 
 men inspired by the power of all true manhood. 
 We crucify the Lord by our unholy distinctions and 
 sectarian differences. Our righteousness is the right- 
 eousness of the Pharisee ; our goodness is measured 
 by a form ; our charitv, by so much per cent. It 
 is our privilege, inspired by Christ's spirit, to be 
 like him; to live a life which he lived, — a life of 
 true nobleness, a life of righteousness and of truth, 
 a life all aglow with human sympathy and love, 
 a life free from canting hypocrisy, a life sealing 
 its devotion to truth by martyrdom, a life fed from 
 above by the influences ot heaven, a life of spotless 
 innocence and divine spontaneity, a life in com- 
 mon with our fellow-men, yet as pure and true as 
 an angel's. Such a life was Christ's. -Such is the 
 life he is now seeking to impart to all his children. 
 
 The true characteristics of the Christianity which 
 Christ taught, is an humble acknowledgment in 
 spirit of our constant dependence upon God ; that 
 
in ourselves we hav^e no life ; that we have no 
 power to originate lite ; that all is from God, who is 
 the only life. The reason why spiritual pride, or 
 Phariseeism, is so hateful to God is, it robs him 
 of his glory, and shuts out the only life that can 
 produce true and righteous fruits. Phariseeism is 
 at the base of all our class distinctions. It breeds 
 tyranny and hypocrisy ; it destroys all sympathy 
 with our kind; it robs the mind of true peace; it 
 dries up the affections, and makes man a demon in 
 soul and a brute in body. Christ, tor this reason, 
 proclaims all equal before God ; that is to sav, that 
 all, by virtue of a common origin in himself, have 
 a common nature ; by virtue of the solidarity of 
 humanity we inherit into the common woe. All 
 may be born into the glorious image of God, and 
 all are born into the image of the fallen man. "Of 
 one blood are all nations of the earth," ami hence 
 there are no grounds of distinction anvwhere. We 
 are all pensioners upon the bounty of Heaven, — all 
 are, or may be, partakers of the Divine life. None 
 are excluded from the sympathy of God, and none 
 should be exempt tVom the care of man. 
 
 In this Address my object has been to show you 
 
 the Typdl Man, the head of the New Humanity, 
 
 the Divine Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, — his 
 spirit, his teaching, his purposes, — so that we as in- 
 dividuals and as a community may, by our lives, 
 sow the seeds which will bring forth the same fruit; 
 that we may be co-operators with him in transform- 
 ing, regenerating, and upbuilding the great American 
 Republic. The basis of Christ's teaching and life 
 
was the equality of all men before God. Such should 
 be the basis, such must be the basis, upon which 
 our whole national superstructure is to be reared. 
 
 On the Fourth of July, 1776, this New Gospel, 
 or rather Old Gospel, was strongly and firmly enun- 
 ciated by the founders of the American Republic. 
 They affirmed that all men are created equal, that 
 they are endowed by their Creator with certain in- 
 alienable rights, which government cannot take away 
 nor society disown. They reasserted in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence the funciamental principles of 
 Christianity. That which was asserted by one man 
 — the Divine Man — eighteen centuries before, was 
 again proclaimed by a congress of men, inspired by 
 his spirit, as the corner-stone of the New American 
 Republic. But, like His own Church, the simplicity 
 of this faith was soon obscured. Our fathers and 
 their ciescendants lost sight of the true fiith. The 
 enemy entered in the night of self-security, and 
 sowed the seeds of slavery and disunion in our 
 national soil, and a dissolved Union is almost the 
 consequence. The destruction of one million of 
 lives, and the expenditure of three thousand millions 
 of dollars, is the result. The estrangement of fathers 
 and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends and neigh- 
 bors, is the horrid picture we behold. God's justice 
 has triumphed, and our own defeat is secured. With 
 the wild waste before us, with the savage brutality 
 of war still unspent, with the passions of bad men's 
 hearts still rioting in victory or defeat, let us re- 
 turn to the early taith of the founders of the 
 Republic. And as we again build the national 
 foundation upon the broad and enduring granite 
 
lO 
 
 of Justice, Truth, and Equality, the new Temple 
 of Liberty will shine in all its original splendor. 
 It will rise a pyramid of flame to light the nations 
 on to the realization of the New and Universal 
 Republic, whose maker and builder is God ; and 
 whose overarching dome will shelter the nations. 
 
 The whole movement of the age tends to the 
 Universal. Universal liberty, universal suffrage, 
 universal education, are the terms by which this 
 movement expresses itself. Like the alpine torrent, 
 it sweeps everything before it. It is the Divine 
 force which is seeking to bring oiu* aims and pur- 
 poses to something beyond the mere selfish aims and 
 purposes of human lite. God is endeavoring to make 
 us feel the warm, palpitating love ot his own heart, 
 which is not confined to one person or a few per- 
 sons, but to the entire human race; for the race only 
 can express the boundlessness of His love. The 
 circling waves of our own life, or rather the Divine 
 life, goes forth from Itself in us as a centre-point to 
 brotherly love, from brotherly love to universal love, 
 which is a love for the whole human race, and the love 
 which makes us God-like and universal in our aims. 
 If we stop short of this love, we cannot fully refiect 
 the Divine image. 
 
 In the realization of the Universal, where error and 
 evil have so long stifled the ]icnt-up heart of man, 
 many irregularities, much fanaticism and infidelity, 
 are woven into our devout aspirations. But God is 
 here as everywhere ; and he interposes a conservative 
 law by which the good is conserved and the evil is 
 permitted to destroy itself. Hence, we always find 
 that, after a i2;reat revolution, such as we have been 
 
1 1 
 
 passing through, a reaction takes place which care- 
 fully separates the good from the evil, the truth from 
 the falsehood, and thus nothing truly noble and valu- 
 able is lost to humanity. Take, for instance, the 
 principle of universal suffrage. There is nothing 
 plainer than that universal suffrage is to be the law 
 of this land. But any one who loves his country must 
 shudder at the thought that this privilege is to be 
 the gift to all, irrespective of qualification or fitness. 
 When the universality of this principle is established, 
 its abuses will bring us to the more true position of 
 impartial, qualified suffrage. The abuse of a principle 
 always brings its correction by reaction ; and you may 
 look for this reaction when the present storm passes 
 over. The lightning of universal principles is necessary 
 to clear our moral and political sky. But when the 
 political sky is cleared, this and all other questions 
 will adjust themselves to a true standard. It is this 
 philosophy, or the recognition of a Divine Providence 
 ruling in human affairs, which gives to the Christian 
 steadiness of aim and faith. He knows that there is 
 a hand guiding the storm, which will bring all things 
 right if he does his duty. 
 
 To attain to a recognition of the Universal in our 
 own experience and faith, we must recognize the ordi- 
 nary allotments of human life. We must start from 
 ourselves, or rather from the Divine in ourselves. To 
 realize that all life is a Sacrament, the Lord has giv- 
 en us one holy Sacrament that this realization may be 
 made personal. To realize that all days are sacred, 
 he gives us one day in seven by which this fact may be 
 perpetuated. That we may feel the sweetness of filial 
 and parental love, he gives us the unity of the family 
 
12 
 
 relation. To feel the genuineness of fraternal love, he 
 gives us the Church, the Community, and the State in 
 which we live, and to which we owe our duties as 
 members and as citizens, x^nd, above all, to give us 
 an object to worship, God gives himself in Jesus 
 Christ, that we may have his personal image before 
 the mind, and that our worship may be potentialized, 
 and made personal and sacred. So the whole round 
 of human experience runs. We attain the universal in 
 the particular. 
 
 When we go back and examine the beginnings of 
 our national life, we see God's providence clearly man- 
 ifest, infusing and transfusing all the best elements 
 of the Old World's culture. The Puritan brought us 
 English law, order, and industry, and love of inde- 
 pendence and personal liberty. He grew where no 
 other could grow, — on the rugged soil of New England. 
 The Hollander, with his commerce, has made New 
 York the centre of the financial and trading world. 
 On the shores of Maryland was cjuickly cemented 
 the mercurial temperament of the Celt; Delaware, 
 and afterwards North Carolina, the noble and hardy 
 Swiss; South Carolina, the fiery and intellectual Hu- 
 guenot; and Florida, the Spaniard, the soul of chivalry. 
 Thus every element of the Old World commenced its 
 almost simultaneous movement upon the American 
 continent. All these elements have gone into our 
 national life, making us a nation and people different 
 from all other nations and from all other peoples. The 
 Anglo-Saxon element, so called, is the dominant ele- 
 ment, because the F-nghsh nation, more than anv other 
 nation, has given to the world liberty and law; and it 
 would seem that God intended that Entxlish law and 
 
political precedents should, for a time, rule and nurse 
 our infant life. Although we gained our independence 
 as Colonies from the mother country, we have not yet 
 tully gained our National independence. The late war 
 has pretty well weaned us — North and South — from 
 the old mother's influence. We are rapidly emerg- 
 ing from a state of pupilage to a state of matured 
 manhood. When this is fully attained, the American 
 Republic will be representative, — representative of 
 American ideas, American impulses, and true Amer- 
 ican independence. When this is accomplished, this 
 day will be hallowed as it should be. 
 
 In addition to the providential fact here alluded to, 
 there is another equally strange and worthy of atten- 
 tion. Whilst the various germs and roots of our na- 
 tional existence were gathered from the best elements 
 forming the European civilization, and planted on the 
 Atlantic seaboard, two principles were developed as 
 the growth of the Colonies went forward. These prin- 
 ciples were and are to-day represented by Massachusetts 
 and South Carolina. One was in constant effort to 
 extend the principle of unity ; the other as constantly 
 asserting the principle of State sovereignty, or indepen- 
 dence. These two principles, now fully developed 
 and known as North and South, have been growing 
 and warring since the first Colonies were planted ; and 
 the conflict which has, at various times, arisen by the 
 one-sided- action of one or the other, has only been de- 
 cided by the recent conflict of arms. The Union and 
 States' Rights were the two terms which expressed this 
 conflict. A perversion of one — the Union — results 
 in consolidation and tyranny ; the perversion of the 
 other — States' Rights — brings anarchy, rebellion, se- 
 
14 
 
 cession, dissolution. Both principles are right anci ne- 
 cessary to the equilibrium of our form of government, 
 when properly adjusted and working in harmony. 
 South Carolina is right, and so is Massachusetts, when 
 each understands the function that each is to perform 
 in the life of the Republic. One preserves us as a na- 
 tion ; the other preserves the purity of local self-gov- 
 ernment. Destroy either, and we have despotism on 
 the one hand, and anarchy on the other. Divorce 
 them, and we have hatred anci hell ; unite them, and 
 we have the chaste bridals of the skies in the love of 
 heaven. This union cannot be fully consummated, 
 this marriaQ;e cannot be tully pronounced, until the 
 fundamental principles ot Christianity are recognized, 
 North and South, — the principles of justice and 
 liberty and equality for all in rights, privileges, and 
 duties. When we say equality, we do not mean, nor 
 does Christianity mean, nor did the fathers of the re- 
 public mean, equality of social relation, equality of 
 physical and intellectual endowments, nor ecjuality of 
 moral attainments, but equality before God, equality 
 before the law, — equality in rights, privileges, and im- 
 munities in a Christian commonwealth; that all may 
 be free to do right, but none free to do wrong : free to 
 open up the vast possibilities of the soul heavenward ; 
 free to enjoy unlimited communion with God, in nature, 
 in society, and in and through the soul, where his more 
 immediate presence is revealed to each individual heart 
 and mind. To this end are governments formed; to 
 this end is the Church ordained ; to this end is the 
 boundless domain of nature opened up throu(i;h in- 
 dustry, science, art, commerce, trade, and all that per- 
 tains to the physical and aesthetic nature of man. 
 
15 
 
 Whilst Christianity asserts the solidarity and equal- 
 ity of humanity, by reason of a common origin in 
 God, it also asserts the counterpart of this half truth, 
 the individuality and inequality of each human soul. 
 That is to say, that whilst the One Life of God is the 
 base of humanity as a whole, the manifestation of that 
 life, through individual souls, reveals unequal rela- 
 tions between all, from the highest to the lowest. 
 Humanity is a Grand Man, and each individual forms 
 a part of the whole. Some belong to the head, some 
 to the arms, some to the breast and loins, some to the 
 limbs, and some to the feet. It is a hierarchy which, 
 when acting perfectly, reveals the lineaments of the 
 Divine Man, whose One Life pervades the whole. 
 Now these two principles. Equality and Inequality (a 
 paradox to the superficial thinker), must find their full 
 and perfect embodiment in our National Life, before 
 this Nation can be what God designs it to be. In the 
 reconciliation of these two elements, — which are at 
 present imperfectly represented by the terms North 
 and South, — we shall have the solution of the prob- 
 lem which now disturbs the devout and patriotic 
 Christian. When these two terms are brought into 
 dialectic Unity, we shall find that the American State 
 is not a vast Syncretism, but it is perfect in all its 
 parts, and that One Life pervades the whole in 
 Diversity. To rise to the conception of this Unity 
 in Diversity is the office of Statesmanship and of true 
 Seership. 
 
 When we analyze the formation ot our national ex- 
 istence, we find that the head of the vast stream of 
 civilization which meanders down through the ages, 
 and finds its outlet here, is traced back to the old 
 
i6 
 
 GrcTCO-Roman Republic and Empire. Rome con- 
 quered but could not destroy Grecian liberty and her 
 love of the Beautiful ; but, entering her rough and 
 huo;e organism of Law, she moulded Roman thought, 
 and in the union of the two Roman civilization was 
 made more enduring; and as the monuments of her 
 greatness descend to us, modern civilization and liter- 
 ature are enriched, and the glory of the past is revealed 
 to us in the Old World in the power and growth of 
 England and France, and here and now more safely 
 established in the Great Western Republic. The 
 American Union is an epitome of the Grarco-Roman 
 Republic, with the Christian spirit operating where 
 the old heathenism held sway. The North and the 
 South represent the two ideas which are destined to 
 work on until the Divine ideal is attained in liberty 
 and law, in truth and beauty. When this ideal is re- 
 alized, our mistaken coimtrymen will see that there is 
 no conquering North nor humiliated South; but both, 
 treed from the barbarism which inheres in their pres- 
 ent inharmonious relations, will be united in indisso- 
 luble wedlock, — forever fixed in the immutable will of 
 Him who is fashioning both, by a mysterious process, 
 into his own image of justice, beauty, and liberty. But 
 before that day comes both sections will have to be 
 sifted and shaken by the Hand which is separating the 
 wheat from the chaff, and which is leading us on un- 
 til the entire American continent shall own the sway of 
 Heaven's King, — the Lord. 
 
 A further analysis of the American Republic shows 
 us that it is an organism, — a body complex in its 
 character, and not an organization, a confederation, 
 or a league of States. 1 know that, to a superficial 
 
17 
 
 glance, the opposite see^jjs the fact. And here is where 
 the South has always had the advantage in the argu- 
 ment. We cannot get a full statement of the facts 
 of the growth of the American States until they are 
 fully evolved ; and the apparent facts of our experi- 
 ence, prior to the war, had all been, until subjected 
 to a deeper analysis, on the side of the South. All 
 our statesmen, all our great jurists, all our best 
 writers, had admitted that the States, in the beginnincr, 
 as Colonies, were "sovereign and independent," — 
 were autonomous, — were self-existent entities. Mr. 
 Webster made this admission in his celebrated debate 
 with Mr. Hayne and Mr. Calhoun ; Chancellor Kent 
 and Justice Chase made the same admission. Presi- 
 dent Jackson, in his brave and heroic Nullification 
 Proclamation, admitted the prior separate sovereignty 
 and independence of the Colonies, and from them the 
 States which made up the original American Union. 
 Any one who is acquainted with the political discus- 
 sions which have periodically arisen in our history, 
 knows that all our principal men regarded the Colo- 
 nies, and after them the States, as independent, and as 
 having the attributes of sovereignty, separately consid- 
 ered. Those who have defended our nationality, from 
 Webster to Sumner, have admitted that it was only 
 after they surrendered this sovereignty, in the forma- 
 tion of the Union, that we became a Nation, — one 
 political people. Calhoun, in his work on Govern- 
 ment, which was and is the text-book of all South- 
 ern secessionists, maintained, and, from his stand- 
 point, justly, we think, that, if it be a fact that the 
 original American Colonies, and after them the States 
 which formed the American Union, were each sover- 
 
i8 
 
 eign and independent, then this Union is nothing 
 but a league, a compact, a confederacy, with its sover- 
 eignty vesting in the people of the several States separ- 
 ately considered ; and hence it follows further, and 
 with perfect consistency, that, if the States were sov- 
 ereign, exercising all the attributes ot sovereignty 
 through their political peoples, the xA.merican Union is 
 a creature of the States, — an agent to carry out the 
 purposes and will ot the copartnership of States. 
 To carry the argument further, as is claimed by the 
 secessionist, when the agent transcends his powers, 
 goes contrarv to his written instructions (the Consti- 
 tution), the compact is broken, — the partnership is 
 dissolved. This was precisely the reasoning ot the 
 Southern leaders, and the basis of their, to them, 
 consistent action. Here is the ground tor a charita- 
 ble interpretation of the motives and actions of many 
 who went into the Rebellion. They were honest; 
 they were willing to lav down their lives for a prin- 
 ciple ; and like true men many ot them were martyrs 
 to their faith. We would not excuse, we cannot 
 find words to utter our condemnation of the spirit 
 which actuated the worthless vagabonds, the ambitious 
 scoundrels, the foul and false-hearted traffickers in 
 human flesh and blood, who seduced the honest, the 
 cultured, the high-toned men and women in the 
 South to take part in their iiitcrnal conspiracy against 
 the rights, the liberties, and the sacred privileges of 
 a portion of God's children, and ot our brethren in 
 God's spirit. God and history will consign these to 
 their merited intamy ; if nor in this world, certainly 
 in the next. A righteous retribution will eliminate 
 the true from the false; and as this elimination 
 
goes forward, we will see who are the true men 
 and women of the South, — those who followed prin- 
 ciple rather than policy, those who loved truth 
 rather than practise a lie; and, although mistaken 
 in what that principle, in all its relations, involved, 
 a righteous God will do these justice: they will be 
 preserved as the true seed from which a true recon- 
 struction will proceed hereafter. 
 
 But to return. We have said, that, on a further 
 analysis of the American Republic, it will be found 
 that ours is not an organization, a league, a confed- 
 eracy, but an organism^ a bodv^ filled with a living 
 spirit, whose outgoings are justice, righteousness, and 
 liberty. Let us see if we can make good this state- 
 ment, and at the same time preserve the truth underly- 
 ing the great and true and necessary doctrine of State 
 Rights. We have already hinted in part how this is 
 to be done, by showing the two principles which lie 
 at the base of the American State. We now proceed 
 to show how the American Union was formed, and 
 how the Divine Providence has preserved the two 
 principles, Union and State Rights^ Nationality and 
 Federation, as necessary factors of the one Union, — 
 reflecting: the duality and trinity of the source of all 
 beneficent proceedings. 
 
 We find that the North American Colonies, not- 
 withstanding their apparent diversity of origin, in the 
 course of time became integral parts of the dominant 
 influence which emanated from the British Empire. 
 From charters derived from the mother country, guar- 
 anteeing all the rights, privileges, and liberties of Eng- 
 lishmen under the English Constitution, each Colony 
 owed allegiance to the sovereignty represented in the 
 
20 
 
 crown and Parliament of Great Britain. To that gov- 
 ernment EACH Colony, /or itself^ held this relation. This 
 continued up to the Declaration of Independence. 
 Here is where the primal rights of the States got lodge- 
 ment ; and it was seeing this tact that made Mr, Cal- 
 houn, in his work on Government, and in his debate 
 with Mr. Webster, contend for the prior rights ot the 
 States to that of the rights of the General Government; 
 to the autonomy of the States derived from the Colo- 
 nies, and these again derived trom the British crown. 
 The rights and autonomv thus acquired were indefeasi- 
 ble, prior, and inalienable, and could not, without the 
 consent of the people ot the States, separatelv, be 
 abrogated or taken awav ; tor sovereign powers inhere 
 in the State for all time, unless destroyed bv its own 
 act or surrendered to another power. 
 
 Whilst it is true that the States got their rights from 
 the mother countrv through the rights continued trom 
 the Colonies, it is also true that, when the American 
 Colonies (the United Colonies) threw off their allegiance 
 from the crown ot (ireat Britain, they gave this 
 allegiance to another Sovereign, to wit : The Political 
 People of the Umti-d Sta-i-es, or the States united. 
 Let us see how this was done. In all the movements 
 of the Colonies, without sacrificing their autonomy, 
 they moved as one people, first beginning with the 
 union of the New England Colonies, and this union 
 widening and extending until an iron framework was 
 formed, which displayed, when the tirst issue came, a 
 united form and front to the common enemv. The 
 first Congress ot these Colonies was under and bv the 
 aurhv)ritv of the people of the ''''United Colonies'^ when 
 afterwards thev severed their relations from the parent 
 
21 
 
 source, and transferred their allegiance to the people of 
 the " United States," they did it as ''''united States,'' and 
 not as "sovereign and independent" States. This 
 appellation was only assumed when the Confederation 
 — that rope of sand — was formed, which, as all know, 
 did not reflect the Divine movement, and which, as 
 a consequence, did not last but ten years. When the 
 present Constitution of the United States was or- 
 dained, it was done by the People of the United States, in 
 their political organization as the people of the States 
 united. Thus we see that, whilst the principle of 
 Federation, of State Rights, — not State Sovereignty, — 
 was being evolved, there was running with it, in fact 
 was the other half of this, the true idea, — that of Union, 
 that of Nationality, having its origin in New Eng- 
 land. The other principle. State Rights, had its true 
 expression in the Southern States, especially in South 
 Carolina, When a philosophical history of the late 
 war is written, it will be found that a failure to make 
 this discrimination was, in a great degree, the cause of 
 the war. It is true that slavery as a collateral issue 
 entered into it, but it is not true that slavery was the 
 main cause of the war. Slavery precipitated it, slav- 
 ery was the occasion of its coming out from its unseen 
 depths. Had the South been true to the institution of 
 slavery, had the Southern people, instead of making 
 the Southern slave a hewer of wooci and drawer of 
 water, a chattel, a pensioner upon their unforced 
 bounty, by a humane and just discipline, by, schools, 
 churches, and all the recognized appliances ot Christian 
 civilization, opened the way for the slave's future eman- 
 cipation, slavery would have proved a blessing, both to 
 the master and to the slave. But this was not done; 
 
on the contrary, the slave system was decreed eternal, 
 the African declared an inferior race, and a brutal, 
 selfish, and tyrannical system was being forged to fetter 
 his God-given spirit forever. Then that " irrepres- 
 sible conflict" which had ever existed between the 
 North and South came forth to the surface, and the 
 thunderbolts of God shivered into atoms the twin 
 blasphemies, Slavery and the Southern Confederacy. 
 Both went down to eternal night; but the true prin- 
 ciple of State Rights, which God planted in the begin- 
 ning of the Republic, has survived. 
 
 In view of the fact that our national legislature is 
 assuming the powers of sovereignty, is taking the form 
 of the legislature of the English government, vyhich is 
 entirely subversive of the true American idea of sover- 
 eignty, it is necessary that we should have a true con- 
 ception of where sovereignty resides in the American 
 Republic. We have previously said that the Colonies, 
 when they severed their relations with the British em- 
 pire, transferred their allegiance as ouc people, although 
 organized into separate political communities, to an- 
 other sovereign, namely, T/ie Political People of the 
 United States. Sovereignty vests in the people of the 
 States united, and not in the people of the States dis- 
 united or separately. A State or Territory out of 
 this Union has none of the attributes of sovereignty; 
 has none ot the rights of States in the Union, or as 
 one of the United States. This view reconciles the 
 whole conflict between the advocates of a Consolidated 
 Nationality and the advocates of a Federal Republic 
 with the States separately sovereign. It reconciles the 
 conflict between Northern and Southern ideas on this 
 subject. It forms the common ground upon which all 
 
23 
 
 can stand, both North and South, and brings, like 
 Christianity, the reconciliation which all at heart seek, 
 but which all do not know so well how to attain. It 
 forever settles the question between the conflicting 
 parties, North and South. It shows that ours is not 
 exclusively a Nationality, nor exclusively a Federal Re- 
 public, but a combination of both. There is no 
 Union without the States, nor are there any States 
 without the Union. Sovereignty, therefore, vests in 
 'The Political People of the United States^ or ot the 
 States united.* What do we mean by the political 
 people of the United States ? We mean the qualified 
 voters of the same. Wlien the Constitution ot the 
 United States declares that " We, the people of the 
 United States, do ordain," etc., it does not mean 
 minors, women, idiots, or disfranchised persons, but 
 it means evidently the voters, — those to whom the 
 /r//.f/ of voting is confided, whether in the primary elec- 
 tion or in the Convention of the people of the United 
 States, which is th^ highest assemblage known to the 
 American form of government; for it, and it alone, 
 has the power to change fundamentally the organic law 
 of the land, — changing it from a republic, as it is now 
 constituted, into a pure democracy, a monarchy, an 
 aristocracy, or into an imperialism. From this it is 
 evident that the sovereign power vests in the political 
 people, the voters of the States united, and this sov- 
 ereignty finds expression when representatively assem- 
 
 * "The political or sovereign people of the United States exists as united States, 
 and only as united States. The Union and the States are coeval, horn together, 
 and can exist only together. Separation is dissolution, — the deatli of both. The 
 United States are a State, a single, sovereign State ; but this single, sovereign 
 State consists in the union and solidarity of States instead of individuals." — 
 Bronson. 
 
^4 
 
 bled in the Convention for the whole people; and not 
 in Congress, as Mr. Sumner and his co-laborers in 
 naturalism would seem to think ; nor in the President, 
 as Mr. Johnson has the audacity to think, and upon 
 his thinking to act. No. The American State is too 
 sacred a thing to be confounded with the British idea, 
 or with that of our French Red Republicans and their 
 satellites ; nor is it an imperialism, constituted by the 
 plebescitum. It is something more divine than either of 
 these. It is no monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, 
 but a Republic, — rcspiiblica. In its Constitution, both 
 written and unwritten, it partakes largely of the con- 
 stitution of THE Church. Beginning trom twelve 
 States f thirteen ■^■), it holds in the evolution of its lite a 
 strikino; analo(2;y to the beginnings of the Church trom 
 the twelve Apostles (thirteen)- As we trace the growth 
 of both, we see this parallel assuming striking and 
 analoii;ous relations. The twelve principles ot the 
 Church are embodied in both ; South Carolina bears a 
 striking resemblance to Judas Iscariot. (Georgia takes 
 the place of Matthias or of Paul in this relation. 
 The analogies can be run out through the whole 
 length and breadth tjf the nation's lite and of the 
 historv of the Church. in fact, the American Re- 
 public, as it is to be, will become the antetype of the 
 new gh)rified bodv of the Church of the Future, when 
 the union of Church and State will be sacred and holy, 
 ht tor the Divine Love and Wisdom to dwell in, in 
 righteousness, peace, and true freedom. 
 
 From this conception of the American State you 
 begin to see what a responsible trust the suffrage 
 
 ■•■■" Tlic original Union was t'ornu-J by twclvi- States instead of tliirtcL-n. Gi-oijjia 
 came in aftcrwariis, an 1 made the thirteenth. 
 
25 
 
 is. The current political doctrine of the day, that 
 voting is a right, — a natural right^ similar to the 
 rights of property, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness, — is unfounded and fallacious, and, if not 
 arrested, will prove a snare and a delusion to the 
 American people. Voting is not a right, but a 
 trusty a privilege, conferred by political society on 
 those supposed to be intelligent enough and worthy 
 enough to exercise it. None but the wise and the 
 good^ therefore, should vote ; for he who votes has 
 the destinies of millions in his hands. Universal 
 suffrage is a fallacious dream, born in the hot-bed 
 of partisan politics. If we are not careful, it will 
 yet prove the overthrow of American liberty. Unless 
 Divine Providence interposes, the great American 
 Republic, as at present constituted, on the basis 
 of universal suffrage, is destined to an eclipse ; to 
 come up hereafter through great tribulation, to its 
 original sanity, as constituted by God through our 
 fathers. The great American Idea will not perish, 
 although we may prove false to its sacred require- 
 ments. It is destined to rule the world, and to 
 add materially to its regeneration. 
 
 The great bar to the present reconstruction of the 
 Union is a want of a proper appreciation. North 
 and South, of the mission both sections are designed 
 to subserve in the unfolding ot Divine Providence in 
 the evolution of the American State ; and of a 
 proper appreciation, in both sections, of the feelings 
 and purposes of each in regard to the other. We 
 are persuaded that if a proper feeling of charity was 
 prevalent, and the good and true of both sections 
 could come to an understanding of each other's wants 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 and desires, with a looking to God for guidance 
 and help in the present crisis of our affairs, it 
 would not be long before true fraternity would be re- 
 stored, and the rights, duties, and privileges belonging 
 to both would speedily adjust themselves. The North 
 thiilks the South wholly rebel, — wholly destitute of 
 a proper feeling for the former slave, and a proper 
 regard and respect for the Union. The Southern 
 people hate, with a bitter hatred, those who thus 
 taunt them with a want of good faith ; the South 
 thinks that the North is a land of isms ; filled 
 with fanatics ; subverters of the true Christian 
 faith and of the ancient land-marks of the govern- 
 ment of the fathers. I'hat the Northern people 
 are mere mone\'-lovers, given to trick and chicane, 
 — abundantly fit tor peripatetic venders ot old 
 clothes, clocks, wooden nutmegs, and Yankee no- 
 tions generally. Both sections have seen the other 
 represented in the worst features belonging to each. 
 Travel anel intercommunion can alone disabuse the 
 mind of this fallacious judgment. There are un- 
 doubtedly nien and women in both sections who 
 deserve the contempt they receive, — men and women 
 who disgrace the name of Christ, and who do not 
 deserve the respect of man. But these are not the 
 classes to whom we can look for permanent results. 
 We know that there are those in the South who 
 have a sincere regard tor the African race, who love 
 the Union, now that the Lhiion is no longer a 
 c|uestionable fact, in theory, if not in practice. 
 They pine for the opj~)ortLinity to redeem the past; 
 to show, bv a true Christian devotion, their love 
 for the African, no less tlian the white man. It is 
 
27 
 
 to this class that we look for practical results in 
 the future. They have for the present retired from 
 the surface of Southern life, and await the time 
 when they can prove their faith by their works. 
 They will have their opportunity ! The Southern 
 people know or think they know that the present 
 movement to reconstruct the Union has no solid 
 foundation ; that it looks only to the acquisition of 
 partisan power and the acquirement of material ad- 
 vantage. In other words, that it is based upon 
 selfishness, and not upon love to the late subjected 
 race, nor of the Union, independent of the mere 
 material advantages to be derived from both. Any 
 reconstruction which has for its end the destruction 
 of the Univritten Constitution^ if not the written, 
 cannot bring permanent results. The Southern peo- 
 ple think that the measures proposed will only 
 breed dissension and final disgust with all. They 
 know that the designations — North and South — 
 have not only a geographical but a spiritual mean- 
 ing ; that these terms embody principles in the 
 very constitution of things. The North means 
 progress, liberty, intellectual activity, small hirms, 
 manufactures, trade, finance ; whilst the South means 
 conservatism, order, heart culture, and with it re- 
 ligion and the social refinements, large plantations, 
 agriculture, and the productive interests generally ; 
 requiring, for the successful evolution of the latter, 
 stability of labor, organized capital, and the pro- 
 found intellectual and heart culture, which these 
 enable the more fortunate to attain. In other words, 
 that the North and the South, when viewed sep- 
 arately, are the antipodes of the other. That they 
 
28 
 
 only work together when this seeming antagonism 
 is harmonized in a higher unity, which comes alone 
 by the true union of Christ's spirit. They know 
 that it is perfectly idle for the North to think of 
 colonizing the South with a " homogeneous civili- 
 zation " ; that it is not desirable, if it couki be 
 done. The South is the woman, the North the 
 man; the South is the will, the North the under- 
 standing. That neither can exist without the other, 
 and that both are stronger and better when the 
 proper relations of each are recognized ; and when 
 reconstruction is based upon a recognition of this 
 fact, it will be permanent, not before. The North will 
 give the negro the suffrage, and exclude the better 
 classes of the South tro!n it ; but we fear it will 
 prove fallacious. The negro has no political past ; 
 he has no political culture. He is a parasite ; he 
 naturally clings, like the ivy to the oak, to the 
 white race. If the white race goes down, he goes 
 with it. His genius is aff^ectional, not intellectual or 
 rational. He is easily led by the good or the evil, 
 and if left to himself, without further culture, may 
 sink back to his original barbarism. Certainly 
 shrewdness, and chicane, and lying hypocrisy are 
 not the best attainments for him. These he will 
 certainly receive if left to the unguided influences of 
 bad counsels. If the better class of Southern people 
 could have the privilege of organizing this race into 
 productive labor, on the large farms which they gen- 
 erally own, it woLdd be a blessing to all. A system 
 without the brutal and disQ-usting features of the old 
 
 slave system, in the hands of those who are actu- 
 ated by true and genuine humane and Christian 
 
29 
 
 sympathy, would go far to settle this whole question 
 of the relation of the races. A system Patriarchal 
 in its form, and born of Christ, preserving intact 
 the freedom and individuality of all, would be the 
 best thing that could be devised for both races. 
 Let the white race realize their true responsibility to 
 the African race among us ; let them redeem the 
 past by giving to this race the advantages of their 
 own culture, and the protecting power and guidance 
 of their superior executive wisdom ; and, under 
 Christ, the South could be made to blossom like 
 the rose. All this could be done without disturb- 
 ing a single relation ; without even the juggling 
 machinery of the State. The new system would, in 
 time, create its own form of expression. In the 
 mean time, until order can be restored, and the 
 rights of all secured, let none but the military 
 power be exercised, in conjunction with the pro- 
 visional governments which have already been con- 
 stituted. If this was announced as the future policy 
 of the government, we believe that men and women 
 would arise who would prove equal to the emer- 
 gency, and who would soon solve the whole problem 
 of Southern reconstruction. 
 
 Disguise it as we may, there is in the South that 
 which every true man and woman must recognize as 
 high and noble. Inverted it may be; often disgust- 
 ing and brutal in its manifestation, but underneath 
 it all we discover that which, if properly directed, 
 would result in a new chivalry, in a new aristocracy, 
 both having for their life the spirit of Christ. The 
 chivalry for righteousness and for true nobleness in 
 women is true chivalry ; an aristocracy based upon 
 
worth and wisdom, and which protects and cares for 
 the unfortunate classes, is true nobility, and may be 
 moulded into a hierarchy which is the true aristocracy 
 of heaven. Such may be born out of the South yet. 
 The Southern people are sick and tired of strife ; are 
 disgusted with politics and politicians, and well-nigh 
 disgusted with the prevalent priesthoods in that 
 section. They long for a Divine ideal yet to come; 
 we mean the better class of Southerners. Think you 
 the great God, who chastises those he would purify, 
 will deny this longing? We believe not. Many of 
 the Southern people are ripe for any change which has 
 God for its advocate. And he will yet come to that 
 sorrow-stricken people. 
 
 But we must bring this Address to a close. We 
 have started with the Divine Man as the incarnation 
 of the whole working life of the Church and State ; 
 for he it is who embodies in his own personality all 
 that is divine in either. It is from him that the 
 great forces now ojK'rant in human nature proceed, 
 inau(>-urating, through his Divine Natural Humanity, 
 the new Church, the new State, — science, art, litera- 
 ture, the fine arts, — the all of lite which has solidity 
 and strength and Divine exactitude, as well as the 
 aesthetic embodiments of a Divine spontaneity. We 
 have seen that the basis of his teachings is love to 
 (jod and love to man, — himself being the exemplar 
 of both; that his Spirit is seeking to bring all gov- 
 ernments, all peoples, to the recognition of the great 
 fact of human brotherhood and love ; that our own 
 government, as it embodies these, will be permanent, 
 and will reflect his image. We have shown, or 
 
31 
 
 attempted to show, the providential evolution of the 
 American State ; that it, in its formation, conserved 
 the great centripetal and centrifugal torces of Union 
 and State Rights, Nationality and Federation ; that 
 these again, when properly adjusted, will be united 
 in indissoluble bonds, making permanent and sacred 
 the Great American Commonwealth. We have shown, 
 or attempted to show, what suffrage is, and what it 
 must be, to become a holy privilege to be exercised 
 bv the wise and good alone, as a trust. We have 
 hinted at what ought to be done to make Recon- 
 struction permanent and lasting. It now onlv re- 
 mains for us, in making this general survey, to 
 forecast briefly the future glory that awaits us as a 
 people if true to the great mission intrusted to us 
 by Providence. 
 
 Ours is a great destiny. I'he Lord of Heaven and 
 Earth is forming our nation into a model republic, 
 that we may be the dispensers of his glory to the 
 nations. Here, on this Western Continent, is rising 
 the temple which is to shelter all people. Here the 
 Divine nature is to be incarnated in law, order, and 
 liberty. Here is to be revealed the unity of Heaven in 
 the bonds of Love. Here Peace, with her dove-like 
 wings, is to find her continual abiding-place ; and 
 here Plenty is to pour from her horn of abundance 
 the riches of untold wealth. When the Old World 
 is torn to fragments by intestine war and hatred ; 
 when the old civilization is burned or rolled away as 
 a scroll, from these peaceful shores will go forth the 
 influences which are to rebuild on her ruins the New 
 Heavens and the New Earth ; which are to establish 
 
32 
 
 there as here a new Christian Republic which will en- 
 fold all nations as one family, whose Father is God ; 
 whose king is Christ the Lord, and whose fellow- 
 ship will be the redeemed of all kindreds and tongues 
 in Heaven. 
 
 University Press, Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
H 33 
 
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