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KH/VAAAAAA,A. flAUw^VlA'VAtt; ft a* ^ 4KVn.A " Mttittfc WTCilMU M^^N il^mMM ■ymiMmmmi^ A***Ctf$iWwm i*i*k* THE PROBLEM OF AMERICAN DESTINY SOLVED BY SCIENCE AKD HISTOET. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY CHARLES T. EVANS, 448 BKOADWAY. £K* "i, Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S62, by CHARLES T. EVANS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. JOHN P. TROW, Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper, 50 Greene Street, New York. AMERICAN DESTINY. _ « « » — PART I. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SCIENCE. We would study the question of American Destiny in the light of common sense, of history, and of science. It may be unusual to illustrate from science, a prin- ciple which is to have a political application ; but we shall endeavor to do so, believing it to be unexception- ably legitimate. The different departments of science, science and history, science and politics, have been, here- tofore, kept quite distinct as to the provinces of inquiry to which it was presumed they severally belonged. Each has been cultivated as if it had no relation external to it- self, and was not one of a family of cognate truths. This, however, is undergoing a gradual but certain change, in which it is becoming constantly more manifest that be- tween the different departments of human inquiry there are mutual dependences and complicated interrelations. 4 AMERICAN DESTINY. which enable us, by the truths of one science, to thread the mazes of another. There are certain general laws which pertain with equal validity to many departments of activity in the natural world ; there are parallel lines of development as the result of the inherent correlation of forces. Thus, if we have found a great general law in physiology, that same law may apply with equal aptness to astronomy, geology, chemistry, and even to social and political evo- lution. One of these general laws, and perhaps the most com- prehensive in its character and universal in its application of any yet known, we will announce in the language of Guyot, the comparative geographer : " We have recog- nized in the life of all that develops itself, three successive states, three grand phases, three evolutions, identically repeated in every order of existence : a chaos, where all is confounded together ; a development, where all is sep- arating ; a unity, where all is binding itself together and organizing. We have observed that here is the law of 2~)henomcncd life, the formula of development, whether in inorganic nature or in organized nature." This answers for the department of physics and phy- siology. We will let Guizot, the historian, speak for the political and social realm : " All things, at their origin, are nearly confounded in one and the same physiognomy ; it is only in their aftergrowth that their variety shows itself. Then begins a new development which urges for- AMERICAN DESTINY. 5 ward societies toward that free and lofty unity, the glo- rious object of the efforts and wishes of mankind." We find an illustration of this law in the simplest of the sciences, if the nebular hypothesis be true, as most as- tronomers believe. We have first the chaotic, nebulous matter, then the formation of worlds therefrom, by a con- tinuous process of unfolding. Each world is a unit within itself, but part of a still greater unit composed of a sys- tem of worlds revolving around the same sun ; and this greater unit, part of one which is still greater — a star cluster, composed of many planetary systems, and subject to the same great cosmical laws. If the theory be cor- rect, we find, in this example, the heterogeneous derived from the simple, and fir more completely an organized unit, with all its complexity, than was the chaotic mass from which development originally proceeded. We find additional illustration in coming to our own world. Its primeval geography was simple and uniform ; there was little diversity of coast line, soil, or surface. But the cooling process of the earth went on, the surface contracted and ridged up, the exposed rocks were dis- integrated by the action of the atmosphere and the waters ; the sediment deposited in the bottom of the seas was thrown to the surface ; continents were en- larged, higher mountain ranges upheaved, the coasts worn into greater irregularity of outline; and everywhere the soil became more composite, the surface more uneven, the landscape more variegated, 6 AMERICAN DESTINY. Corresponding changes have taken place in the cli- mate. At first the temperature of the earth was much warmer than now, and uniform in all parallels of latitude, as is shown by the fossil remains. Now we have a great diversity of climate, whether we contrast the polar with the torrid regions, or the different seasons of the tem- perate zone with each other. The same law of increasing diversity obtains in the fauna and flora of the various periods of geological histo- ry. The earliest fossil record of animal life is witness to the simplicity of organic structure. Amongst verte- brated animals, fishes first appear, next reptiles, then birds; still higher, the lower type of animals which suckle their young ; and, as the strata become more recent, still higher forms of mammalia, till we reach the upper tertiary, in which geologists have discovered the remains of many animals of complex structure nearly allied to those which are now in existence. In the his- toric period appear many organic forms of still greater complexity, with man at the head of the zoological series. In this glance of zoological progress, we discover in- creasing complication of two kinds ; for while the indi- vidual structure has been constantly becoming more com- plex, there are now in existence the analogues of the low- est fossil types, which, with the highest, and with all the intermediate, present a maze and vastness of complica- tion, which, in comparison with the homogeneity of the AMERICAN DESTINY. 7 aggregate of early structure, is sufficiently obvious and impressive. There is in this view, still another line of increasing complexity. At first the same types prevailed all over the earth's surface ; but as the soil, atmosphere, and cli- mate changed, and the animal structure became more complex and varied, the limits of particular species be- came more and more localized, till the earth's surface presented zoological districts, with the fauna of each pecu- liar to itself. But, what of unitization 1 Here, there appears to be divergence only, and that continually increasing. Guyot says that " the unity reappears with the crea- tion of man, who combines in his physical nature all the perfections of the animal, and who is the end of all this long progression of organized beings." Agassiz recog- nizes man alone as cosmopolite ; and Comte regards him as the supreme head of the economy of nature, and repre- sentative of the fundamental unity of the anatomical scale. But another and more obvious example of unitization in complexity, is derivable from the consideration of the animal organism, and will soon be given. We will merely mention in passing, that the most complex animals, in the various stages of fetal develop- ment through which they pass, correspond to the types of structure which are permanent in the lower forms of animal life. Thus, in the zoological chain, there are b AMERICAN DESTINY. beings of all grades, from the most simple in structure to the most complex ; and the most complex animal, in its development from the ovum or egg, passes through all these grades of structure, ending in that which is above all, and distinctively its own. " Without going into tedious details, man presents, as regards the most impor- tant of his constituent structures, his nervous system, the successive characteristics of an avertebrated animal, a fish, a turtle, a bird, a quadruped, a quadrumanous animal, before he assumes the special human characteristics. 5 ' (Draper.) Our purpose being to show that while complexity of structure is constantly increasing, unitization, or the organized dependence of one part on another, is, at the same time, becoming more complete, we shall refer briefly to the comparative anatomy and physiology of animals. There is in this connection such wealth of material — a long chain of animal beings with all grades of structure from very simple to very complex ; each complex anL mal, in its development from the ovum, passing through all the lower types of structure in succession ; so many new organs and functions arising in the course of this de- velopment ; each organ so arising, becoming, in its turn, more complex in structure, more specialized in function, and more dependent on the office of other organs ; — in the midst, I say, of all this wealth of material, indicated here in a very general and imperfect manner, the difficulty, in so brief an exposition as this, is to know what facts to AMERICAN DESTINY. seize upon as calculated to illustrate most aptly the prin- ciple under consideration. The development of the senses, with reference to their organs, nerves, and functions, presents a striking illustra- tion of increasing complexity. In the lowest forms of animal life, we find general sen- sibility only, and it is claimed that this exists in the low- est forms, without even the presence of nerves. But as we rise higher in the scale, the special organs of sense gradually become developed — one new sense after another appears ; but this is not the only line of increasing com- plexity. When an organ of sense first appears, its func- tion is of the simplest character ; and it is only when we reach the highest types of animal life that it performs the greatest variety of offices peculiar thereto. That of touch is, at first, but crude and simple, becoming delicate and complicated only in the highest types. The sense of pain is a differentiated function, possessed only in a slight degree by reptiles and fishes, and probably not at all by animals still lower in the scale. The eye-spots of star fishes and jelly fishes simply distinguish light from darkness, much as we do with our eyes closed. There are many degrees of development from this condition of the inferior organism to that of the. human eye, which distinguishes the nicest shades of color, distance, form, and size of objects, and the play of passion on the human countenance. The. same variety of function is acquired by the ear in 1* 10 AMERICAN DESTINY. its development from its simplest to its most complex form. In the higher animals, the organ of hearing is formed of three parts, an external, middle, and internal portion ; but in birds the external ear is wanting ; in fishes both the external and middle parts are wanting ; in mollusks it is reduced to a simple sack of microscopic di- mensions, filled with a liquid in which there are otolithes, or pebbly substances. Such an organ can distinguish noises only ; it can recognize nothing of the infinite variety of articulations, notes, tones, melodies, harmonies of the human voice and of musical instruments. There is even a great difference between the disciplined, and there- fore differentiated ear of a cultured person, and the undis- ciplined, and therefore less differentiated ear of a boor. Similar specializations of structure and function pertain to the other senses ; but we may pass them. The digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems, and all the other systems of the animal structure, evince the same law. The lowest form of the circulating fluid, as in sponges, is simply water containing gases and organic particles ; and this can scarcely be spoken of as circulating, for it is merely drawn in and then expelled. A little higher in the scale naturalists find a "chylaqueous fluid," which oscillates in the general cavity of the sack-like animal. Tlie true blood is another step in development ; and even this organized fluid changes its character as the scale ad- vances. Most animals have no heart ; and when the AMERICAN DESTINY. 11 organ does first appear, it is but a simple, rudimentary structure, very unlike the complex machine which plays at the centre of circulation in the higher types. Though fishes breathe through their gills, receiving all the oxygen they require from the small amount of air in the water, the swimming bladder is in them the rudiment- ary lung — a very simple structure, indeed, when com- pared with the more complex arrangement for respiration in the higher animals. Some animals of gelatinous, and therefore flexible structure, perform digestion by folding their bodies over the food, and pressing the nutritious matters out of it : they extemporize a stomach for the occasion. And even in some of the higher types, in such as have a permanent mouth and stomach, the digestive process is simply a squeezing out of the elements of nutrition. The digestive apparatus, from being a simple sack in the polype and similar organisms, becomes, by a continuous unfolding, the complicated structure which we find in the higher ani- mals, with various organs effecting various parts of the digestive change, and even different parts of the same organ having specialized functions to perform. The most complex animal proceeds originally from a simple cell ; and " at the two extremes we may contem- plate the single germinal membrane of the ovum, which is discharging contemporaneously every function — digest- ing, absorbing, respiring, etc. ; and the complete organic apparatus of man. the stomach, the lungs, the skin, the 12 AMERICAN DESTINY. kidneys, and the liver — mechanisms set apart each for the discharge of a special duty, yet each having arisen, as we know positively from watching the order of their develop- ment, from that simple germinal membrane." (Draper.) This is what one physiologist says of the ovum which is being developed into a complex being. Here is what another says of animals at the lower end of the zoologi- cal scale : ' ; The simplest organisms breathe, exhale, se- crete, absorb, and reproduce, by their envelopes alone." (Lewes.) Here we perceive the resemblance between the ovum of the higher animals and the permanent structure of the lower animals. Indeed, some of the lower forms of animal life are simply cells. How vast the difference between the organism of man, with all its complexity of structure, and that of the Ameba or Actinophrys, which, being merely a homogeneous mass of organic matter, performs all the functions of its simple life without any special organ whatever ! Yet, is man any less a unit than the Ameba, or any other simple organism 1 Does his multiplicity of organs impair the integrity of his ana- tomical and physiological oneness ? Is the circulation in- dependent of respiration ? Is digestion independent of the circulation ? Can any one organ act independently of the others ? Is not the entire series of parts, organs, and func- tions bound up in complete and inseparable unity ? The vicarious action of one organ for another has been a ques- tion amongst physiologists ; and if admitted, as in the case of the salivary glands acting for the kidneys in pro- AMERICAN DESTINY. 16 fuse spitting, and the skin for the liver, the vicarious function can only obtain to a slight degree and in a tem- porary manner. The destruction of any considerable or- gan involves the destruction of all the rest. I repeat that the integrity of the physiological unity at the top of the scale, is far more complete, with all its complexity, than is the integrity of the physiological unity at the bottom of the scale, with its marked simplicity of structure. By no sort of legerdemain or surgical skill can we make an individual mammal become two. If we divide it, the whole dies. Not so, however, with some of the lower grades of animal existence. Cut a hydra into thirty or forty pieces, and each piece will become a distinct animal — a fac-simile of the original one. In quite an analogous way do a large number of animals at the lower end of the scale propagate, by segmentation and division ; one indi- vidual becoming two, two four, and so on. Many examples might be adduced to show the absence of organized unity in the lower orders of the animal crea- tion. Thus, in the annelid, which is composed of a great many similar rings, and is regarded as quite a complex creature, there is so little dependence of one part on another, that a number of the rings may be destroyed without any injury to the rest. The Synapta, when in want of food, will amputate its own body to procure the necessary supply ; and it has been observed to repeat the operation, until it " had by degrees eaten away the whole of its body to keep life in the head." (Quatre- 14: AMERICAN DESTINY. fages.) Such a phenomenon as this is very unlike that "presented by the higher animals, which, together with their multiplied individuality of part and function, and their infinite variety of physiognomic expression, present, at the same time, a unity of organization so complete, that an injury to one part is instantaneously telegraphed to all parts of the system, and sympathized in by all to a greater or less extent. As in physiology, the development of the individual corresponds to the development of the entire zoological series ; so, when we rise into the psychological realm, do we ascertain that the development of the individual mind corresponds to the development of the mental series from the savage to the civilized. In the physiognomy of the savage there is little variety of expression ; he has not differentiated that multiplicity of thought and feeling which moulds the face and plays upon its lineaments in the cultivated Teuton. The same is true of the latter while an infant. But who will say that the cultured man of this age is less a balanced, unitized creature than the child of the cradle, or of the forest 1 The latter is but a creature of impulse, moved by every appetite, and swayed by every gust of passion. He has no fixed principles for the regulation of his life. There is no presiding power to rule and subordinate the tumultuous and refractory ele- ments of his character, and thus unitize the mental organism and its manifestations. This is what culture gives. Here then we also perceive that with the development of va- AMERICAN DESTINY. 15 riety and complexity, the element of unity becomes more active and manifest. This view of the progressive unit- ization of the individual man in a psychological aspect, is very suggestive when taken in connection with the wane of despotism and the growth of liberty, as society and government advance, and it becomes ever less the prov- ince of law to govern, and also to regulate. We have adduced some of the illustrations which physical and physiological science affords of the Law of Universal Development : let us close this part of our subject with the illustrations afforded by the rise and progress of Science as a whole. The first germs of science were very simple, existing in connection with Art, and subserving the purposes of priestcraft. For a long time the range of scientific inquiry was so limited that the same individual was able to grasp it entire. But one branch after another has sprung up, diverging more and more into the realms of the unknown, until no one mind can hope to obtain even a general knowledge of them all. But this has not been the only tendency of scientific growth. Divergence and differentiation had not proceed- ed far till the combining and organizing movement began. The more individuality and complexity have threatened to outreach the mental powers and become unmanageable, the more have order and organization shown their ability to subordinate and unitize the seeming diversity of ele- ments. While the sciences continued to increase in num- 16 AMERICAN DESTINY. ber and complexity, they began to overlap and interlace, the principles of one running into the domain of another, and even coordinating and binding together its seemingly incongruous parts. A simple scientific generalization is based on certain facts which, taken in their collective capacity, mean the truth which is expressed in the formula. A higher gen- eralization embraces those which are simpler, and unites by its expression the truths which they contain into the formula of one great truth. This process goes on, rising constantly higher and higher, the generalizations of the ascending series becoming more comprehensive, and the convergence of all the diversified elements into great gen- eral laws more striking and complete. Thus advances the unitizing movement of science ; and it is now pro- gressing with a steadiness and certainty unknown in former periods of research. Great minds are at this mo- ment occupied in the discovery and verification of these great unitizing laws. Thus we perceive, that while sci- ence has developed a bewildering mass of individual facts and minor principles, it has also developed the germs of a unity which is destined to unfold with a richness and magnificence of result heretofore unknown in the annals of human inquiry. As the special departments of science have testified, so also does the general view of all science testify to this Law of Universal Development. But, what- has all this to do with American Destiny ? AMERICAN DESTINY. 17 Very much, us may yet appear. Jt is by the Past only that we can read the Future ; and if in history and in all development, there is revealed by the inductive process a great general law, that law becomes the Oracle of Destinv. PAET II. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM HISTORY. A fitting transition from science to history would be ethnology, the science of races, connected as it is with physics, chemistry, and physiology, on the one hand, and with history on the other. There are different theories in vogue to account for the diversity of human races now in existence. Some refer human origin to an original pair, whose descendants have changed through the action of physical causes, as food, soil, climate, and scenery, and also through the operation of moral ones as dependent on the physical, and therefore secondary thereto, such as manners, customs, and government. Others deduce it from different lines of development, coming up through the zoological scale, and thence passing from the lower to the higher races of men. Others still speak of mankind as originating " in nations," each race being fixed in its physical and mental characteristics, and having an origin independent and dis- tinct from all others. AMERICAN DESTINY. 19 It matters little to our purpose which of these the- ories may be true, the difference as to aptness of illus- tration being only one of degree. We prefer, however, to deal with facts in regard to which there is little or no difference of opinion amongst the theorists them- selves. There are simple and complex peoples or races, as there are simple and complex organisms. Take any primitive race, whether described in history or by some contemporaneous traveller : in a physical point of view, the men are all very nearly alike, and the women likewise. Describe one individual, and you have the description for all other individuals of the same sex belonging to the race. And there is not usually as much difference in the physical appearance of the sexes in primitive races as amongst those who stand higher in the scale. "What is true of their physique, is also true of their minds. As one thinks and feels, so all think and feel — and that, too, without concert ; it is the simple expression of an undi- versified mental organism. Their faculties are rude and uncultivated ; they act chiefly on the perceptive plane, reflecting but little. They are predominantly sensual, not having developed the higher mental activities which pertain to an advanced state of society and result in those great diversities of attainment and expression amongst individuals of the same people. There are reasons for believing that there was a time when this planet had no human inhabitants but races of this simple 20 AMERICAN DESTINY. type. Great changes have taken place since that day ; changes which, by the law of their accomplishment, cor- respond precisely with the changes which have taken place in the zoological scale. Owing to causes which we may not fully understand, races have "been developed which present, each within its own limits, great contra- rieties of physical appearance and mental characteristics. Amongst " Anglo-Saxons ? ' there is often greater diversity in members of the same family, than you would find in a million individuals of a primitive race. The complex ap- pears, somehow or other, to have boon developed from the simple. The simple fact of a population becoming more nu- merous, necessitates certain changes — from hunting to pasturage, for example, from pastoral life to agricultural and fixed habitation — and these would affect the habits, modes of thought, and, to some extent, personal appear- ance. The modification of climate by clearing, draining, and cultivation, and the removal of a people from one climate to another, would effect still other changes. But the intermixture of races by war and immigration has, perhaps, done more than any other cause to produce the great physical diversities which we now find in the higher races. Having traced the stream of warlike immigration from Eastern Asia westward, and thence to Central Eu- rope, and still westward and southward to the shores of the Atlantic, and even across the Mediterranean into Africa, overwhelming the Roman Empire of the West in AMERICAN DESTINY. 21 its course, — observe this tide of human movement, as wave followed wave for centuries, rolling peoples against and over one another, confounding them together, and leaving them upon the same soil, or in close proximity to each other; and, even admitting that they were simple and primitive to begin with, we shall not wonder at the diversified aspect of the people of Europe and their des- cendants in America. But this is only one series of movements from which has resulted the intermixture of races ; there are others, and some, no doubt, beyond the farthest reach of history. The process of intermixture is still going on, especially in the Western World, though by methods usually more peaceful than formerly. The result multiplies itself, and the leading races of mankind are becoming constantly more composite. The contact and intermixture of races have had a moral result, which, in its turn, acts upon the physical. Mental development has been one of the results of war and immigration ; one people learning from another, and striking out new modes of thought from the sheer necessity of new circumstances ; and this mental develop- ment changing the physiognomic expression and general bearing of the man. This result has been increasing in geometrical progression since history, printing, and the facilities of intercommunication have made the culture of one people contagious to other peoples, and the attain- ments of one generation available to all the generations that follow. Thus does every movement among the na- 22 AMERICAN DESTINY. tions conspire to change the simple types into those which are more complex. The ethnological unity may be less apparent ; and before we clearly perceive it. we mav have to rise into the consideration of social and political relations, not divor- cing these from physiology, without which no question relative to man can be rightly judged. And it may be that after greater development in this direction, the unity of races may become more distinctly pronounced and more readily recognized. We may observe, in passing, that the same causes which have contributed to this ethnological complexity, have, at the same time, aided in the development of the cosmical idea — the idea of the unity of the universe. At first, tribes had little communication with each other, and knew nothing of geography beyond the limits of their own hunting grounds. They knew as little of the vastness of the earth outside of their domain as of that of the uni- verse. This could only be conjectured from the vantage ground of some degree of intellectual culture, and the idea must remain vague and indefinite till after long ages of real experience and intellectual unfolding. It was not till after Alexander's conquests in the East, the extension of the Roman Empire, the invention of the mariner's compass, the discovery of America, and the circumnaviga- tion of the globe, together with the perfection of optical instruments by the use of which the true character of the celestial bodies was demonstrated, that the cosmical idea AMERICAN DESTINY. 23 became truly a scientific one. (Humboldt.) Thus were the partial and fragmentary notions of early peoples at length corrected, enlarged, unitized. Closely akin to this is the development of the god- idea. Fetich-worship is that of the rudest people. They see a god in every individual object, in every stream, in every tree, in every stone. All they see is, however, shrouded in mystery, and they have a blind veneration for every object. A step farther, and the developing mind generalizes these objects. The individual trees, for example, are taken collectively, and their divine rep- resentative worshipped as the god of the groves. There are, at the same time, other unitizing conceptions of the god-idea. There is a god of the hills, a god of the streams, of the seas, and so on. New classes of divinities may be evolved in the mythological system ; the strong and salient passions of our nature may come to have their deities — to be unitized, at length, with all other gods. Meantime, mankind are forming into states, with some degree of regular government ; and apparently in accord- ance with this fact, the gods are subjected to the partial control of one who is greater than all the rest, and who is their father and king, but himself subject to the decrees of Fate. Another grand step, and seemingly in corre- spondence with the more centralized government of a vast, and powerful empire, we hear of one God only, who is all- powerful, and master of Fate itself, with a hierarchy of angels, powers, and principalities, reaching from God to 2± AMERICAN DESTINY. man, and subordinate to the Central Will, which rules all things, whether " in the. armies of heaven or among the inhabitants of the earth." Thus did the idea of one God eventually swallow up all the others ; and the god-idea was completely unitized. We now come to consider the political and social evo- lution of mankind, as it appears to be revealed by the comparison of various stages of national growth. The primitive condition of all races, so far as history and travel reveal it, correspond with what is characterized as homogeneous or unorganized. Socially and politically, individuals of the same sex are all alike. There are no classes in society, no rulers, no aristocrats — no society even — nothing but individuals ; and it is here that we find individuality in its purest form. There is no law origi- nating with a sovereign, or with the people, for the adjust- ment of difficulties ; every individual avenges his own wrongs in his own way. Cooperation is scarcely known ; there is nothing in their habits, nothing in their social and political relations to bind society together ; there are no specialized parts or functions — no dependence of one part on another ; it is marked by a homogeneity of structure, if structure it can be called, which is unimpeachable. The only cooperation which obtains beyond the limits of the family, is that of hunting and war ; and these exercises develop the need of a chief or leader. The strongest and most daring are self-elected by virtue of individual prow- ess. But still the chief is verv like all the rest of the AMERICAN DESTINY. L\> tribe, lives in the same style, provides for his own wants in the same way, has no special privileges — is merely a chief or leader, and nothing more. And afterward, when he may have acquired some degree of authority, that authority is purely of a military character — civil gov- ernment is not yet born. Usage comes at length to con- firm the chiefs right, and human selfishness works out its legitimate results : smaller men are dwarfed, as occasion permits, in order that the one who is greatest may be magnified. His office becomes hereditary, and his family is, at length, fabled to have descended from the gods. This is the tendency of primitive ignorance and supersti- tion : there must be a sensual object for the blind venera- tion of sensual minds ; and the imagination readily pro- vides this, by attributing to the progenitors of their chiefs vast corporeal forms, great strength and skill, undaunted courage, and success in amorous intrigue — the perfection of those qualities which they themselves most covet. Their chiefs or petty kings are now such by divine ori- gin ; and when civil relations become developed, oner man combines within himself all the prerogatives of civil, military, and religious government. The ambition and turbulence of the chief or petty king and of his people bring them into hostile conflict with other tribes or petty states ; and when victorious, they appro- priate the conquered territory, and annihilate, enslave, or extend their rule over the vanquished people. This war- like encroachment and increase of power alarm other 2 26 AMERICAN DESTINY. states, and they form confederacies or leagues more or less intimate and permanent for resistance and mutual protection. Thus does the unitizing element of government gather strength with the progress of political movement. The ambitious chieftain, having acquired greater power than his neighbors, conceives of further aggrandizement, undertakes new conquests, attacks the weak, and adds other states to his own, till in time he may have made himself a great sovereign and won a great kingdom. These new conquests impose additional cares on the ruler ; but he uses the tools of his power to execute his will ; he governs his kingdom with absolute sway, as a general governs his army ; it is a military despotism of the sim- plest structure, and all prerogatives and interests are merged in and subservient to this one. The civil function is not yet developed as distinct from the military. Only one idea pervades the government, and that is the idea of absolute rule by brute force. Society has as yet devel- oped few elements, has but few interests and little func- tional diversity ; there are only two classes, the ruler and the ruled, the masters and the slaves. There being but few political and social interests to play amongst each other, there cannot be development for want of activity ; there can be little progress of any kind. Such are the simple, unprogressive, one-idea governments which pre- vailed in the earliest times, of which we have any tolera- bly authentic record, and which still prevail among half- civilized peoples. AMERICAN DESTINY. 2 i Government is simply a growth, a development, and it must correspond to the character of the people out of whose mental status it has sprung. If the people are homogeneous in their mental structure, their social and political interests must be correspondingly homogeneous and simple. The more rude and primitive the minds of any people, the fewer are the relations external to the individual which obtain among them. But when a peo- ple, or a mixture of peoples, have developed great versatil- ity of mind, a great variety of tastes, propensities, aspira- tions, and interests, their social and political institutions become correspondingly heterogeneous and complex. Such are the social and political systems of Middle and Western Europe. There was nothing of the kind in the ancient world. Then the people were more simple and less versatile in their mental habitudes ; and a simple, though despotic government was the inevitable outgrowth. Rome was but a military despotism, and it conquered and ruled with military stringency. It was not till the reign of Diocletian that the civil functions were divorced from the military, and then only to a partial extent. It remained for Constantine to carry out more fully what Diocletian had begun ; and to divide, or, if you please, to differentiate the governmental functions to an extent which had been altogether unknown before. The people of the provinces subject to Roman dominion had no recognized rights, no voice in their own government, but were dominated by the central power at Rome. The 28 AMERICAN DESTINY. right of representation, so sacred in modern times as an element of confederate policy, they did not desire nor ap- preciate ; for, when seven provinces of the south of Gaul were commanded by the emperor Ilonorius to send a rep- resentation of their chief men to the city of Aries for the supervision of interests which concerned themselves, they disregarded the mandate. A central despotism maintained Roman unity ; and, whenever its iron arm should by any means become weakened, the empire must fall into frag- ments. The dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West was the end of one cycle ; thence began another — that in which we now are, and which should be of absorbing in- terest to us. A state of affairs quite unlike anything known before, was then inaugurated. Hundreds of years have been required to develop results so as to enable the human mind to divine at all definitely the law of its movement ; and hundreds more may be required to de- velop the full fruition of what was then so inauspiciously begun. As we are all aware, the Roman Empire of the West was overrun by hordes of barbarians from the North, who annihilated a great portion of the old population, and changed the character of society. But Rome did not die without bequeathing a legacy to be enjoyed by the des- cendants at least of those by whose hands she had fallen. There was still some remembrance of what Rome was. Guizot says that " the two elements which passed from AMERICAN DESTINY. 29 the Roman civilization into ours, were, first, the system of municipal corporations — its habits, its regulations, its principle of liberty, a general civil legislation common to all ; secondly, the idea of absolute power — the principle of order and the principle of servitude." These elements, though almost latent for a time, were destined to make up and play a conspicuous part in the war of diversified interests and the adjustment of political relations, hun- dreds of years afterward. ' Another element of society at the time of the Fall, was the Church. The barbarians conquered the empire, but the Church conquered them ; without gaining much, however, to show for her victory ; for, while the barba- rians embraced Christianity, they reduced it to bar- barism, and were much the same rude, cruel people, after their conversion, that they were before. The Church, however, in its origin .and growth, illustrates the law under consideration, in the gradual development of the distinct specialities of organization ; and we are now regarding it at a time when it was one element among others, and destined with them, by the interaction of their various forces, to evolve a still higher unity. Another element in society, at this time, was that which was brought by the conquerors from their native wilds in the free North. They were a rude, and even savage people, with no fixed ideas of property, but living by hunting and pasturage, and driving their herds from <»ne region to another as necessity required. The most 30 AMERICAN DESTINY. marked and distinctive feature in their character, and that which played the most conspicuous part in the social and political drama of the following centuries of development, was their personal independence — their almost absolute individuality, as the result, we believe, of their superior native physical constitution. They had little or no cooperation in their own coun- try ; no combination of civil interests ; no settled govern- ment. They were apt for adventure, and readily formed into bands of roving warriors ; and when pressed forward by the tide of warlike immigration from the East, they conquered the Roman Empire, and divided the lands among themselves. German magnates courted followers in their own country by hospitality, by presents of horses and arms ; but in the conquered countries, by grants of land for military service. These grants were at first made during pleasure, then for life, and at length they became hereditary. (Robertson.) In this manner it appears that the feudal system originated — a system which grew into such magnificent proportions in Middle and Western Eu- rope. It was, however, a growth which was five' centu- ries in maturing. (Hallam.) A curious circumstance, connected with its develop- ment, deserves to be noticed, as showing that certain rights, however desirable, and even sacred they may seem to be, must succumb to the prevailing order, however undesira- ble that system or order might, under other circum- stances, appear to be. Allodial lands, or those held in AMERICAN DESTINY. 31 the right of the individual, and for which there was no obligation of service, except in the general defence, were at length swallowed up by the feudal system. In those days of universal anarchy, rapine, and oppression, the rule of might and unrestrained selfishness prevailed to such an extent, that small proprietors, having no means of defence against the strong, were compelled to surrender their allodial title for a feudal one, and do homage to the neighboring lord for the sake of protection. And to such an extent did the abasement of allodial privileges pre- vail, that it came at length to be recognized as a princi- ple that the feudal arrangement was the only legitimate one ; whereupon allodial lands were seized with impunity, and appropriated by the feudal barons. Even the Church was subordinated by the prevailing system. The bishops became feudal lords. The incomes of religious service Mere, in some cases, seized upon by the irresponsible barons, and disposed of according to the feudal policy. This, however, is but one example of the struggle of a system or movement to subordinate what stands in its way, and become universal ; it is a law of history. The feudal system was a very complete embodiment of despotism. It grew out of the political circumstances and mental status of the times, and could only exist by the warrant of these conditions. It had its redeeming qualities, however, and, no doubt, promoted the conditions and the spirit which prepared the way for its own over- throw and the inauguration of a better system. The 32 AMERICAN DESTINY. isolated and pent-up condition of all classes, together with such culture as was afforded by their mode of life to the inmates of the baronial castle, made the occasion for that general restlessness in society from which proceeded such ready response to the fanatical appeals of Peter the Her- mit. The Crusades lasted two hundred years, and contrib- uted to the overthrow of feudalism by the increase of gen- eral intelligence and the diminution of the baronial estates. After the fall of the empire, the cities began to de- cline, and their government fell, in a great measure, into the hands of the clergy; and thence supervened a kind of ecclesiastical municipal system. Commerce, which some centuries later began to develop, gave renewed import- ance to the cities ; and the activities developed within them were antagonistic to the feudal spirit, and destined to contribute their part, and an important one, to the process of ultimate organization and its accompanying phenomena. The cities at length became free, not with- out a struggle, for it is not to be supposed that the great barons would passively allow the enfranchisement of a rival power within their own domains. In those rude times, the cities had little intercourse with each other ; yet they became independent nearly at the same time, showing that this political phenomenon was also a growth, arising out of the condition of the times — the result of political and social causes acting in concert over more than half a continent. The cities accomplished their political mission by AMERICAN DESTINY. 33 doing something toward establishing law and order, and fostering the germs of freedom. Their example could not but tell upon their immediate neighbors. In some cases they even attacked the nearest feudal lords, and afterward those more remote, compelling them to be- come citizens. Thus was feudalism overthrown in Italy in the thirteenth century. Elsewhere, commerce had as yet done less for the cities, and their progress was less rapid. But, whenever they appeared, they had the great barons to contend with. The free cities or communities gradual- ly extended intercourse with each other ; and for objects of commerce and mutual defence against their enemies, they formed into leagues. Coalitions of the feudal barons also sprang up, and wars between the two systems were frequent and bloody. Feudal France made war on municipal France. The Hanseatic league, embracing at one time eighty-five German cities, maintained successful wars against thje monarchs themselves. There was a con- federacy of cities in Italy of great power and influence. These movements show that the former isolated condition of European society was no longer compatible with the change which was being gradually brought about in the social elements. We perceive a manifest tendency toward more extensive union ; larger combinations were becom- ing a demand of the times. But, along with the progress of this tendency to unity, we perceive that society was constantly becoming more diversified in character, and its elements more distinctly 2* 34 AMERICAN DESTINY. defined. The institution of chivalry, the troubadours, and minnesingers had played their part. Besides those great political and social powers, the Church, the barons, the kings, and the free cities, new classes were rising in so- ciety, giving it greater complexity, and, by their diversified activities and needs, urging it forward to a more compre- hensive and centralized organization. At first, in the twelfth century, the inhabitants of the cities or free com- munities were composed only of " small traders and small landed or house proprietors." " Three centuries after- ward there were added to these, lawyers, physicians, men of letters, and local magistrates." (Guizot.) In the rude and chaotic society which succeeded the fall of the empire, there was no occupation honorable but that of arms ; but in the course of time, the meed of hon- or assumed new branches, and fell upon various classes. The discovery of the Pandects of Justinian in the twelfth century, gave the study of the law a new impulse, and, to- gether with accompanying developments, complicated the administration of justice. Rude and ignorant warriors were no longer adequate to this function ; civil processes required a distinct organ ; the profession of the law arose, and commanded its share of public attention and respect. With the rise of commerce, there was developed a com- mercial class, which acquired wealth, power, distinction, and a demand for rights. With the revival of learning and philosophy, however unpromising at first, there arose a literary class, which attracted notice and acquired influence. AMERICAN DESTINY. 35 In the view given of the earlier stages of modern civil- ization, we perceive, first, a social chaos which obtained for some time after the fall of the empire in the West ; secondly, the development out of this chaos, in the course of centuries, of various political and social powers, classes, and interests, which were differentiated from the unorgan- ized mass ; thirdly, all these diversified elements, classes, and interests, gradually tending to the formation of more comprehensive relations with each other. There was no general organization of these several elements, in the early periods of the modern cycle. There were, what were called kings and kingdoms, but it was not till a com- paratively recent period that the government became an integer, a complete organism, with a sensorium and will- power, and a mutual interrelation and dependence of parts and functions. During the prevalence of the feudal system and the rise of the independent communities, European society was composed of innumerable fragments, isolated from each other, and each caring for itself only, looking to no centre as the source of political order and vitality, with- out organization or head. The king did not rule the barons any more than the barons ruled the king — they were rival powers ; the barons and the cities were rival powers ; the kings and barons played off the cities against each other. The Church, by the peculiarity of its consti- tution and character, was related to them all. The clergy were the subjects of the king, the vassals of the baron, 36 AMERICAN DESTINY. and yet the spiritual lords of both, as well as of their feudal peers. And when the Church effected the separa- tion of her own from the political power, she sought, in turn, to subordinate the latter ; and secular rulers were obliged to resist her encroachments to save themselves. The kings had no fixed revenue adequate to government, and were the sport of the capricious elements within their own realms. But the Crusades brought all these frag- ments into closer relations, and broke the power of the feudal lords. The king gained what the barons lost ; and with these powerful, turbulent, and refractory subjects out of the way, the cities were easily subordinated. The sovereign acquired at length an adequate revenue and a standing army ; he was now enabled to command the re- sources of his kingdom, and play a king's part in the drama of nations. Thus was consummated the movement of national centralization. Progress advances by action and reaction ; extremes develop each other. It was so in governmental aflairs. The movement of unitization ended in the absolute power of the sovereign, who became not only the head of the executive function, but the source of legislation as well. In France, Louis XIV. knew no will but his own ; the States General and Parliament were little more than empty names ; and in England, Parliament stood in awe of Queen Elizabeth, and the courts did her behests. The sovereigns were absolute. Tint with the culmination of royal prerogative and centralized government, there were AMERICAN DESTINY. 37 also an increase of intelligence, greater facilities for inter- communication, and, as we have seen, a diversity of social and political forces interrelated, and acting and reacting upon each other in a manner quite unprecedented. The inquiry and criticism of plebeian minds were becoming more daring, and there was a stir and a restlessness in society, which made bad subjects for an absolute mon- arch. The religious Reformation, which began in Ger- many and spread to the westward, was but the legitimate result of the intellectual agitation which preceded it ; and the political absolutism of kings could no more expect exemption from searching criticism and final revolution than the religious absolutism of the Pope. The German Reformation was blind to the magnitude and significance of its own mission ; for while its leaders denounced rea- son, it was in its essential nature a protest against priestly domination over intellect, and a plea for the right of free inquiry. Agitation, of whatever kind, is contagious ; and the energetic play of this diversity of plebeian forces must needs result in the recognition of a popular element in the government, more or less formal in its character. The government of an intelligent people must emanate from the popular will, to a very great extent, whatever the form of government may be. If Queen Elizabeth and Louis XIV. were more absolute than the sovereigns of our day, it was because the French and English people had not then developed that versatility of genius, that in- telligence and freedom of inquiry, that self-appreciation 38 AMERICAN DESTINY. and dignity of character for which they have since become so conspicuous. With the increase of intelligence and self-respect among the people, there originated a popular branch of government to look after their interests, and it grew with their growth. Through this channel there came a pressure upon the throne, which must needs yield, or be overturned by the surges of revolution. The examples of Charles I. and Louis XVI. were extreme. The popular element has since then usually accomplished its ends with less turbulence and commotion. It has been less violent, but none the less effective. Since the Resto- ration in England, the popular will has been making itself felt in national affairs more and more. And in France, even a Napoleon, mighty and original as he was, had to consult popular tastes, and, in a great measure, conform thereto. We have heard a great deal about the tyranny and usurpation of Louis Napoleon ; but he, too, must conform to the predominance of public feeling in France, or that public feeling — " public opinion " — would burst out in a torrent of revolution which would over- whelm him. This introduction of the popular element into government is a result of the developing process, which has made government an organism of almost in- finite complexity. As we have seen, while primitive peoples remained in an isolated and exclusively individualistic condition, there were few civil interests ; and these few the petty sovereign was not concerned with, so that he could discharge in per- AMEBIC AN DESTINY. 30 son all the functions of his simple government. But, when the civil interests had grown into greater magnitude and diversity, and the pressure of their administration was upon the throne, the affairs of government became too burdensome for one man. A division of labor became necessary. The order of priests originated at an early day, and took charge of religion. The king, in time, ceased to march at the head of his army, and sent his gen- erals instead. Not being able to hear and decide all causes, he named judges to administer justice ; and thus the process of functional differentiation began, and kept on without abatement as the needs of the government re- quired. There was a time when an Englishman had no conception of a prime minister. (Hume.) In this age we cannot conceive of government without such a func- tionary, whether administered in the name of king or president. With the development of new interests arose new branches in the administration of government. The constant rise of new industrial elements ; the increasing demand for the facilities of intercommunication ; the de- velopment of trade and commerce ; the interrelation of interests within, and the complication of affairs without, have given rise to new departments in the government, with a hierarchy of subordinate bureaus ; while the in- terests of towns, counties, and states have necessitated an analogous scale of functionaries, making, on the whole, an amazing complication of governmental machinery. This increase of complexity is precisely analogous to the order 40 AMERICAN DESTINY. of development in every department of nature : it is per- fectly in accordance with the second feature of the law which we have recognized as a Law of Universal Develop- ment. Some of our economists may object on principle to so much complexity, and attempt to simplify government by eliminating certain terms of the series. Let them try it ; God is mightier than they ! There may be govern- mental abuse in regard to the complexity of its functions ; but the thing itself is simply in the order of destiny. Man develops it, because he must ; it is the historical result of the accumulation of all human activities. There is one kind of simplification, however, which should be closely observed ; and that is to accomplish the object of any governmental function in the most direct and economical manner. There is great room for im- provement in this respect. Nature, in the midst of all her growing complexities, exemplifies the principle of the greatest possible result with the greatest possible economy of means, considering in all cases the obstacles to be over- come. Let government do the same, and see that every channel of official activity be thoroughly purged of cor- ruption and abuse. This development of organic complexity is just as necessary and inevitable in the political as in the animal economy ; and the performance of any function, in the one case as in the other, depends for the degree of its com- pleteness on the extent to which " the division of labor " AMERICAN DESTINY. 41 is carried through the complexity of the organic structure. There are no grounds of apprehension from this source whatever. In regard to government, this increase of com- plexity is most strikingly observable in the executive de- partment ; and it is worthy of notice that while this de- partment of government is in general becoming less tyrannical and relatively weaker with reference to the legislative department, it is also becoming more com- plex : as tyranny recedes, complexity advances. There is no point better sustained in history than the general fact that, as government increases the multiplicity of its ma- chinery, it gradually relaxes its interference with the private rights of individuals. After man has laid aside his primitive habits of selfish isolation, and, though still rude and untutored, has come, through the mere increase of numbers, into a more com- pact form of society, the government, however circum- scribed as to territorial limits, assumes a despotic and intermeddling character. Such was the government of the feudal lords during the middle ages, and of the kings at a still later day. Laws were made for the regulation of dress, as to quality and cut for particular classes, and the number of garments which any person might have in a year. Citizens were not allowed to keep certain kinds of furniture ; and the dishes they might have for dinner and supper respectively, were definitely and rigidly pre- scribed. The wages of the laborer were fixed by law to the great advantage of the lordly employer : this, how- 42 AMERICAN DESTINY. ever, was a very natural sequence to the abolition of vil- lanage or vassal servitude. The law made service at par- ticular trades compulsory ; and decided where certain kinds of manufacturing should be carried on ; and how an article should be made, and how sold when made. This interference affected every department of the individual's private life. Religious interference need only be men- tioned ; it is w r ell known. As Buckle declares, in speak- ing of the interference of governments, " It may be em- phatically said that they have taxed the human mind. They have made the very thoughts of men pay toll." Queen Elizabeth was a very great sovereign, but she meddled with very small matters. She disliked the smell of woad, a plant used for blue dye, and thereupon prohib- ited its cultivation. She was displeased with long swords and high ruffs, and commissioned her officers to break the swords and abate the ruffs. None of the nobility dared marry without her consent ; no one could travel without her permission. Foreign commerce was subject to her capricious will. The star chamber, the court of high com- mission, the court martial, the warrants of the secretary of state and privy council, were instruments of terror to the subject, who had no remedy by law. There was no safety but for harmless stupidity or slavish conformity. Individual independence was impossible. Every noble, manly head that appeared above the servile mass, was unceremoniously hid away in a dungeon, or struck off on a scaffold. AMERICAN DESTINY. 43 Such annoying and insolent intermeddling on the part of governments no longer exists. There can be no such thing among an enlightened people. As the mass of mankind, or we will say their leaders or representatives, become more cultured, they demand a larger field of in- dividual freedom, and organize a pressure upon govern- ment, which in time effects its object, and the oppression is removed, or gradually becomes relaxed and obsolete. Observing that the differentiation of function obtains chiefly in the administrative department of government, and putting the two general facts of history together, — first, that while the subject is enlarging the domain of in- individual liberty, and secondly, the government becoming more complex in structure and activity, — we infer that, through the advance of general intelligence and the multi- plication of interests, government is changing its character from an instrument of compulsion and force to an instru- ment of management and direction, wielded by the gov- erned themselves for the benefit of their own diversified and interrelated interests. In following the course of individuality, we find it simple and almost absolute in savage life ; then it is overpowered and disappears under the despotic and one- idea governments of ancient times, and of Asia still ; at length it reappears, and gathers strength with every ad- vancing age, with every discovery, with every improve- ment, with every flash of intelligence, till it has accumu- lated, in its course, all the diversified means of expression 44 AMERICAN DESTINY. and gratification atfbrded by art, literature, and all the social appliances of a complex and exalted form of so- ciety ; — and the end is not yet : there will "be more free- dom, other methods of expression, new facilities for en- joyment and happiness. Its destiny is a glorious one ! It may be well in this connection to recall to mind the principle that, with the rise of new functions and the in- crease of complexity, unity obtains its completest form and fullest expression. These two elements are by no means antagonistic ; they belong together, and one necessitates the other. It is a general fact of history that there is a relation between the culture of a people and the geographical ex- tent of their voluntary combinations. Whilst rude and uncultivated, with no facilities for intercommunication, they form no permanent associations of any considerable magnitude ; but with the advance of general intelligence, the rise of distinct classes and industrial and commercial interests, together with the improvement of facilities for travel and trade, and for the intercommunication of thought and feeling, there is developed a general bond of sympathy between larger masses of mankind, and the natural result is more extensive combination. The unity becomes more comprehensive. We have observed this in our glance at European development. Let us trace the course of one of the lines of political movement. In a primitive society, as amongst the ancient Germans, each individual has the right of avenging AMERICAN DESTINY. 45 himself, of taking justice into his own hands, and deter- mining what the measure of satisfaction shall be. The right of private war, derived from rude society, remained for a long time in Western Europe, and pertained to the clergy as well as to laymen — a custom which was withal not very Christian-like. A step beyond this, and there was recognized a regular method of determining the amount of satisfaction due for an injury : composition for crime became fixed. We observe here a development from absolute individuality in the matter of determining justice to the recognition of a conventionalism — a law which was the product of the sense of many individuals acting, it may have been, in some cases, without con- scious concert, yet in a social and cooperative way. As mankind grew out of their original, rude conditions, they relinquished the individual prerogative of taking justice into their own hands, and appealed therefore to a tribunal which was recognized as adequate to this end, and the jurisdiction .of which seems to have had a constant tend- ency to enlarge its territorial limits. Thus, for a time, the feudal barons claimed the final adjudication of all dif- ficulties among their own vassals; but, gradually, dissatis- fied clients appealed to the king, who encouraged them to do so, and at length the throne became the universally recognized centre and source of all formal justice. This was a movement occupying centuries for its con- summation, a movement which extended the jurisdiction of the tribunal of justice from the territory of a private 46 AMERICAN DESTINY. individual to the territory of an entire kingdom, collecting the isolated jurisdictions of every individual in barbarian society, and uniting them all together in the recognized sovereign of a consolidated nation. Now, while it is true that " the history of progress is the history of successful struggles against coercion and authoritative direction, and ill favor of human spontaneity and free motion " (Slack) ; it is also true, as we have seen in tracing the course of the administration of justice, that " the progress of civilization consists in the substitution of the general for the individual will, of legal for individ- ual resistance." (Guizot.) The development of law, or of a general method, is the necessary result of social interchange, through which thoughts and feelings become contagious and mould a general will. In primitive society, individuals arc iso- lated, and it matters little to others what any individual does ; hence he is allowed to settle his own difficulties in his own way. lie is let alone in a way so terrible, that similar treatment would be social death to a man of cul- ture. We repeat, there is nothing like absolute individ- uality, except among isolated and unsocial savages. In an advanced state of society, human interests become inter- related — a complete network of complexity ; and what any particular individual does becomes a matter of in- terest to many, since the many are, to a certain extent, aflocted thereby. The individual of civilization has devel- oped relations external to himself, and his rights can only AMERICAN DESTINY. 47 be secured and his tastes and wants gratified by mutual understanding, cooperation, and combination. His indi- viduality is of a far higher order than that of the unculti- vated man ; and precisely because it is higher, does it de- velop law as the embodiment of the general will, and require organization for its expression. " It is through association that the highest form of individuation becomes possible ; and nationality wisely developed will terminate in a cosmopolitan identity of interests, and a general unity founded upon a reciprocity of services among all the di- visions of mankind." (Slack.) It is owing to this same fact of the interrelation and dependence of interests, that the movement of unitization has not stopped in Europe, with the organization of a dis- tinct government for each nation. We have observed that when primitive individuals develop relations with each other, they form into small societies, and that when these develop relations with like societies, they unite and form larger associations ; and further, that these states, cities, baronies, come at length to develop relations with each other, and the result is their union into kingdoms. But this tendency of growth does not cease here. One nation cannot long remain isolated and distinct from other nations. The interests of one kingdom become, in many ways, interrelated with the interests of other kingdoms ; and there must be new governmental ap- pliances to meet the case. Diplomacy, a new function of government, arose from this necessity. This is a 48 AMERICAN DESTINY. political activity of quite recent development : it originated in the fifteenth century. Like all progressive develop- ments, it was at first immature ; " it was not till the seven- teenth century that it became really systematic ; before then it had not brought about long alliances, great com- binations, and especially combinations of .a durable na- ture, directed by fixed principles, with a steady object, and with that spirit of consistency, which forms the true character of established government." (Guizot.) Who can say that we have yet seen the end of this process of national development % Centuries have been required for all great changes affecting the destiny of man : the centuries of the great Future may yet develop a unity among the nations themselves — a distinct political organism for the regulation of national interests, which are constantly becoming more interrelated and complex. As cities, states, and baronies were developed from in- dividuals and tribes, and as kingdoms were developed from cities, states, and baronies, so may a mightier political fabric than has yet been known, be developed from the family of nations ! The law, we repeat, is, that with the advance of social dependence and complexity, the principle of unitization becomes practically more intimate and comprehensive. It is to this law that nations owe that vitality of which diplomatists and constitutional lawyers take cognizance. By virtue of this law, a nation is a living organism, re- sisting with all its vital force whatever mav threaten it AMERICAN DESTINY. 49 with dissolution. Hence the utter folly of cherishing the idea of a " peaceable separation " of confederated states. There can be no such thing in the order of nature. The rupture and division of a nation is a reaction against the spirit of social progress, a backward move- ment against the current of civilization, a terrible out- rage to the organizing forces of the political realm, and can only be effected through violence and bloodshed. The more mature civilization becomes, the more difficult to effect disunion, the more terrible the penalty, and the more enduring, discordant, and wretched the consequences. The law of unitization is a universal one, being an accompaniment of all unfolding, and man worse than wastes his energy in fighting against it. It is a great law of Universal Progress, and in lifting our hands against it, we are presuming to measure arms with a Power which will be sure to overwhelm us with confusion and defeat. We must consent to go with the grand movements of the Universe, and to march to the step of Destiny, or be crushed under the resistless tread of advancing peoples ! The course of industrial, mechanical, and commercial progress from savage to civilized life, goes to illustrate and confirm the view which we have taken of the course of political development. Among the least cultivated tribes of mankind, the family is wholly adequate to itself, there being no dis- similarity of industrial function, except between the hus- band and wife. The family builds its own hut, makes its 8 50 AMERICAN DESTINY. own weapons, kills its own game — in short, provides for all its own needs. What is industrially true of one family is true of all others ; there is no division of labor, no exchange of products. They have no accumulated property, no fixed habitation, but wander from place to place, as the attractions of their simple life may lead them. But when population becomes more numerous, and neither hunting nor pasturage is sufficient for their support, the cultivation of the soil is resorted to, and new wants are developed. The division of labor, the differentiation of the industrial function begins. One man cultivates the soil, another works in iron, another in wood, and so on ; and these specialities, in their turn, assume new branches. Take agriculture for example : At first every husbandman grows all that he needs for himself and family ; after a while he observes that his soil is better adapted to one kind of crop than another, and he devotes himself more exclusively to its cultiva- tion. A similar result with a different crop obtains on a different soil and in a different locality ; and thus do the specialities of soil and climate result in the specializa- tion of agriculture. These diversities of occupation with reference to the soil, wood, metals, imply the exchange of products ; but this must obtain to a very limited ex- tent whilst neighbors are remote, and the means of travel and transportation defective. With few roads, and com- merce undeveloped, there is little intercommunication, little culture, little civilization. This was the condition AMERICAN DESTINY. 51 of Scotland as late as the middle of the eighteenth century. (Buckles.) England had some external commerce as early as the thirteenth century (Ilallam), but did not send a ship of her own into the Mediterranean till the fifteenth. (Robertson.) Think of the difference between then and now ! The making of tools, implements, and fabrics is at first carried on solely by individuals working alone, but at length machinery comes into use, the elements are used as driving power, and manufacturing establishments arise having a complicated organization. The division of labor has been all the time becoming more complete, till now a single workman manages but a part of the pro- cess of making an implement or a fabric, which must pass through many hands in succession before it is com- pleted. All are familiar with this fact. It is exactly analogous to that which we observe in the animal econ- omy. Low in the zoological scale, one membrane per- forms all the organic functions ; higher in the scale, there are different organs to perform the distinct functions. When the stomach and liver first appear, they are very simple in structure, and as simple in function ; it is just so with the manufactories in the industrial organism. But the stomach and liver become more complicated as the scale rises ; it is just so with the manufactories as civilization advances. Animals lowest in the scale have no heart — no circulation. It is just so with society — if society it may be called— which is lowest in the scale ; 52 AMERICAN DESTINY. it has no exchange of products — no commercial circula- tion. The parallelism is complete. Further, as already specified, we find in the animal organism, that the dependence of parts and functions upon each other becomes greater with the increase of complexity ; that unitization at the top of the scale, in the midst of an almost infinite complication of organic struc- tures and functions, has a completeness and significance which it cannot have in the simple organism at the bot- tom of the scale. The same precisely is true of the social organism. At the bottom of the scale, there is no de- pendence of one part on another — no cooperation — no proper unity — nothing but simple individual life. Higher in the scale, there is dependence of one element of society on another ; there must be cooperation, combination, organization, a tendency, at least, toward unity. This is well exemplified by industrial and commercial development. With regard to manufacturing, there is specialization, not only in the handiwork, but also in the locality of production. Thus, in Great Britain, where this development has most fully matured itself, " the calico manufacture locates itself in this county, the woollen-cloth manufacture in that ; silks are produced here, lace there, stockings in one place, shoes in another ; pottery, hardware, cutlery, come to have their special towns; and ultimately, every locality becomes more or less distinguished from the rest by the leading occupation carried on in it. Nay, more, this subdivision of func- AMERICAN DESTINY. 53 lions shows itself, not only among the different parts of the same nation, but among different nations." (West- minster Review.) Some of our economists object to this process, and would bring all kinds of productive labor into the same district; but a law higher than their theories brings artisans of the same kind into the neigh- borhood of each other ; — it is the cooperative action of the principles of differentiation and unitization. The effect of this process is to make one locality de- pendent on another locality. Once, as we have seen, the family was adequate to its own needs ; now, we perceive the industrial producers of one district have become de- pendent on each other, and on the products of other dis- tricts and nations, for the supply of their needs. This industrial division and concentration gives increased im- portance to commerce, without which there could be no industrial development. It is thus that these two activi- ties are separating the elements of society in order to bind them the .more firmly together. The improvement of roads, rivers, harbors, the con- struction of canals, railroads, and telegraphs, the develop- ment of industry, the extension of commerce, the advance of general culture, and the consequent increase of human wants, is making society a very complicated structure ; — indeed, it has nerve and tissue, and is becoming very sensitive. The loss of a crop in one country affects all other countries. The burning of a city, or even of a great manufacturing establishment, is really felt to the re- 54 AMERICAN DESTINY. motest ends of civilization. A commercial crisis on cither shore of the Atlantic shocks the whole civilized world. A rebellion in the United States is affecting the agriculture of the whole country, the production of a staple on three continents, manufacturing in France and New and Old England, commerce everywhere. Every partisan clique, every political court and cabinet, even political destiny itself, throughout the whole world, reels with every surge of a distant revolution ! I low different from the condition even of Europe in the twelfth century, when a whole city or barony, an entire kingdom, or half the continent even, might have sunk beneath the ocean, and the rest of the world have known nothing of it by its social results ! Thus, as in the undeveloped organism there is a want of dependence and sensitiveness, so is there the same want in undeveloped society. As in the higher organic structures there is a high degree of unity and sensitive- ness, an injury to the remotest part affecting instan- taneously the whole organism ; so, precisely, is the same true of society in its higher stages of development. The law is universal ; it governs the organic as well as the inanimate, the social as well as the organic world. Hence the reason why the rupture of Europe, on the death of Charlemagne, into provinces and kingdoms loosely united, could not prevent the ultimate organization of national government, and the rise of relations external to the indi- vidual nation, out of which diplomacy grew, for the con- AMERICAN DESTINY. 00 summation of a policy above the nations themselves. Obstructions may be thrown in the way of unitization, but it will express itself in some form or other. If, on account of the viciousness of primitive conditions from which it has been developed, modern Europe cannot yet exist as a union of states under one great and glorious government, it will, nevertheless, approximate that union, as best it can, and consummate vast national leagues, which are becoming constantly more comprehensive and permanent as civilization advances. PAET III. THE APPLICATION. The law under consideration is exemplified in the social, industrial, and political development of the United States. There is a manifest difference, however, between the history of our civilization and that of Europe, though not in the least affecting the integrity of the law. The people of our nation were not derived directly from a rude and primitive condition, as were those of the Old World. The history of our civilization is, in its origin, coordinate with European civilization in the seventeenth century, after modern intellect had been fairly aroused, and the national organizations had been quite fully developed. The chaos and barbarism which the history of European civilization presents, and the play of antagonizing forces through the long period of centuries, resulting in some degree of political order and unity, does not belong, except as an introduction, to the history of American civilization. Ours is a branch from the European, after it had been growing for several hundred years. AMERICAN DESTINY. 57 During the period which intervened between the Declaration of American Independence and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, there was no formal and permanent bond of union between the several States ; it was provisional, — they were held together by outside pressure and a common interest in the cause of independence. The settlement of a general government for all the States was a crisis, not only in the affairs of this country, but of the whole civilized world, as we believe the future will most fully reveal. To the re- sponsible statesmen of that day, this was a period of intense solicitude, such as we can realize only by an effort of mind to place ourselves in their situation, and bring before us the magnitude of the objects to be at- tained, and the difficulties to be overcome. There was then, as now, a diversity of interests to be harmonized ; but there . was one interest, which, in its political rela- tions, requires to be characterized by a stronger term than that of " diversity." Between chattel slavery and free labor there is " irrepressible " antagonism, and there could be no real union — no blending of the twain ; but the gulf was bridged, under the pressure of necessity, as the wisdom of the times could best devise. It was, indeed, well done. Union was the great object to be accomplished — it was the highest, the most comprehen- sive principle that could enter into the motives of political action — it was even a necessity of the current civilization, and must needs subordinate all minor principles and 3* 58 AMERICAN DESTINY. interests ; and we owe a debt of gratitude to those who so nobly wrought this glorious Union out of colonial chaos and isolation. The instrument of this Union has been characterized by well-meaning, but one-idea minds, as a " covenant with death, and an agreement with hell," simply because it effected the union of free with slave States. This method of characterizing the Constitution of our country — as noble a document for its time and place as the world has ever seen — can well be excused, since it has no doubt been done in utter obliviousness of the importance of the principle of political unitization. The original consumma- tion of this Union was a great step in political progress ; it was an achievement of the master principle of political movement ; and God wills that no part of the advantage then gained in the struggle of Destiny shall ever be given up ! But while unity is thus exemplified in the history of our Government, the phenomenon of differentiation is also manifest. The functions of government have greatly multiplied since its first organization ; the " division of labor " process has been going on, and new departments and bureaus have been established. 'While I write, the expediency of another department, that of agriculture, is being agitated in Congress. The Department of the In- terior has been quite recently created, and new bureaus in this department, and in others, are being created from time to time, bv act of Congress, to meet new wants in AMERICAN DESTINY. 59 the administration of our Government. And what is true in this respect of the General Government is, also, true of the State Governments ; for there, too, do we find the development of new functions, and the creation of new official organs to execute the same. This growth of the country at large, from which these new demands on the Government arise, is to be seen very distinctly in the industrial and educational elements of society. While these interests increase in magnitude and variety, and the people are becoming more con- cerned therein, the Government assumes a responsibility in regard thereto, which can only be discharged by the multiplication of the administrative appliances. These new governmental activities arise from the popular will, as moulded and expressed through the more intelligent and enterprising of its actors. They choose to have it so. It is found convenient, in the promotion of certain gen- eral interests, to appeal to a power which is presumed to embody the elements of order and authority in the exe- cution of its will. In the construction of railroads and telegraphs, capitalists must cooperate with the Govern- ment in relation to questions of right, which, in many cases, can only be settled by a regularly constituted tribunal. State agricultural societies appeal to State Governments for cooperation, and when received, the in- dustrial interests of the country are advanced thereby. We all know what State Governments have done for the cause of education. Sections of countrv which would at 60 AMERICAN DESTINY. this hour have been in a state of almost semi-barbarism, have — thanks to our educational policy — been redeemed from their prejudices against intelligence and education, and been made to step into line with the advancing columns of civilization. The same civilizing influences, precisely, have been brought to bear, by the active part which Government has taken in the improvement of all the means of travel, trade, and the transmission of intellL gence. The intelligent and active few have thus ad- vanced the interests of the many. In districts of country which have been without the channels of commerce except iti a very rude condition, and where the enterprise of the people was inadequate to their improvement, the Gov- ernment has reached out its strong arm and redeemed them from their primitive rudeness, thereby promoting the physical condition, the enlightenment, and the culture of the people. There are plenty of instances on record, in which improvements of this kind— of roads, for ex- ample — have been made against the will and in spite of the opposition of the people most to be benefited thereby ; and had they not been related under the same govern- ment to communities more intelligent and enterprising than themselves, they would have remained in an isolated and semi-barbarous condition. Now, while we readily discern the increase in the objects and in the machinery of government, we cannot so readily discern the abatement of governmental inter- ference with the private affairs of the individual, as in AMERICAN DESTINY. 61 governments of longer standing. There has not been time for great changes in this respect ; and then, in the earliest legislation of our country there was compara- tively so little that was obnoxious to individual freedom, that there has been less occasion for the change in ques- tion. The Blue Laws of Connecticut arc proverbial for their intermeddling with private life. There has been no change in this respect so marked since the organiza- tion of our government as there was before ; but so far as there has been any, it is in favor of the exemption of the individual, in ordinary times, from legal interference. The entire atmosphere of American society is becoming more liberal as general education advances ; and this, in turn, acts upon the legislative and executive functions of the government, to make the laws and the execution of the same more acceptable to a cultured people. The " Maine Law," earnest and benevolent as it was in pur- pose, and to all seeming so obviously founded in the right of society to protect itself, could not be sustained against this tendency in government to let the individual alone in the affairs of his private life. We have observed that there is a concentration of different industrial and commercial functions in different sections of the country, whereby these sections become dependent upon each other, and the unity of the whole, to a certain extent, made inevitable. Now, Ave insist that political economy and the greatest well-being of all require that the political jurisdiction should, as far as 62 AMERICAN DESTINY. possible, be commensurate with that commercial, indus- trial, and social dependence which works itself out to a large degree of fulfilment in spite of the obstructions interposed by the contractedness and isolation of political organization. As we have seen, this dependence of one industrial section upon another, and of one commercial centre upon another, as the result of commercial and industrial spe- cialization, is becoming more and more marked as a development of human progress. All this increases the need for more extensive political organization, while at the same time it makes it possible. It will readily be perceived that since industrial and commercial development is necessitating dependence and unity, it is equally true that the natural varieties of soil and climate are, also, conditions of like dependence and unity. When these diversities of soil in different sections are fully developed, and the exchange of products readily made through improved commercial facilities, and human wants multiplied by means of civilized culture, agricul- tural specialization creates the demand, not for political division and isolation, but for more extensive organiza- tion. That New England manufactures is no reason that she should separate her government from that of the other States; but just the reverse. That the Middle States are more distinctively a mining region, and the great West agricultural, is no reason that their general government should be distinct, but precisely the reverse. AMERICAN DESTINY. 63 That the South produces cotton, rice, and sugar, is no reason for her seceding from the Union, but exactly the reverse. These diversified interests, we repeat, create interrelation and dependence, unitizing the commercial and industrial polity ; and the political organization should, as far as possible, be coextensive therewith. There are physical necessities which prevent the forma- tion and maintenance of a comprehensive political or- ganization in the earlier stages of civilization, but these never have obtained in the United States, and every hour's improvement carries us further beyond them. All the results of a progressive civilization are con- stantly complicating the dependence and interrelation of various sections of our country. Roads, railroads, canals, and lines of telegraph, by their connections and intersec- tions, are so many bonds of union between the various districts of our country — so many bonds of union between the various States of the confederacy — and forbid its dis- solution. Even Nature conspires with civilization to the same end. The great valleys and rivers runnino- north and south, are so many natural ties, which the most incorrigible perverseness, on the part of man, could alone prevent from performing the office to which they seem so happily adapted in the play of the civilized elements. As we have seen in our brief view of Europe, greater political unitization has been the result of growth in civil- ization. In the United States, all natural, commercial, 64 AMERICAN DESTINY. and industrial bonds of union arc becoming more fully developed. This evinces the direction of progress. What, in the light of this view, are we to think of the doctrine of " secession % " — of secession, that political dog- ma of recent development, which, if made practical, would destroy all political unity of greater compass than a State — a State, the idol of Southern political worship. It would break any confederacy into fragments, and pre- vent the consummation of those great unities which an advancing civilization demands. This doctrine of " seces- sion " would remand us back to the condition of affairs in Europe during the twelfth century, before commerce, the Crusades, and the waking up of intelligence had com. menced the movement of national organization. The Southern States have a barbarian institution in their midst, but, not satisfied with that, they would inaugurate the practical operation of a new political doctrine, which must introduce still another element of barbarism, and interpose an additional obstacle to the progress of civil- ization. Shall this be 1 ? It is opposed to the political tendency of the times ; and the common sense of mankind should forbid the acceptance of a political solecism in the organization of government, which virtually annuls the unity and integrity of the government itself. There are crises, however, in human development, when the movement is rapidly set forward ; and others, when it may be as suddenly arrested or thrown back, rc- quiring long periods to regain the lost ground, prepara- AMERICAN DESTINY. 65 tory to a new advance. Our Union, only a brief while since, appeared to be upon the point of irreparable rup- ture ; the division of this great Union into minor geo- graphical districts, like the European monarchies, seemed to be imminent. The determination of the South to se- cede ; a large portion of the influential press at the north pleading their cause ; Buchanan favoring secession ; many in the north, then and for a long time previous, in favor of a " peaceable separation ; " but — thanks to the blind impetuosity of " Southern chivalry "—with the fall of Sumter, and the inauguration of the war, the only hope for this Union revived ! Wicked or foolish people have said that the bombardment of Sumter was the death-knell of the Union ; — we believe it was just the reverse ; — as the turning point of a great crisis, it signalled the birth of a new era. It threw the trimming and temporizing politicians of the north off their old tracks, and tore their platforms from under them ; their antipathies were sud- denly neutralized ; their prejudices vanished ; they were unexpectedly floating anew on the sea of public senti- ment ; the opinions of influential men were subject to a new ordeal ; and the views of many an entire clique, fac- tion, and party were revolutionized in a day. Northern pride was wounded ; Anglo-Saxon energy was aroused ; there was a demand for determination and ' ; pluck," and the result is known to all. Secession, in the free States, was suddenly transformed ; there was a grand uprising for the vindication of a great principle of political devel- 66 AMERICAN DESTINY. opment ; and nearly a million of armed men of all parties are now in the field ; and God grant that they may be able to overeome the abettors of a barbarian policy ! But if the cause of patriotism and civilization should fail in this struggle, what will be the consequences? Standing armies, stronger governments, leagues and rup- tures, internecine wars, European interference. Let this division of our once happy country be consummated now, and there can be no reunion for ages. The South- ern nation recognized by European Governments, treaties and alliances formed, and we are involved in European complications through which the separation will be per- petuated. And this disunion made permanent, others will develop themselves, and in time be consummated. It is the interest of the reigning dynasties in Europe to see our nation dismembered : the South would be our rival ; and we should not have power to enforce union hereafter. When a politico-geographical weakness is developed along the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific States will not be without ambitious demagogues to attempt the establishment of an independent organization on the Pacific. Another fracture may be developed along the Alleghanies, and the great agricultural West may set up for itself among the nations. New England may be seized with a like madness, and unworthily aspire to a separate national existence. With all these petty nations on this continent, there must be standing armies, leagues, and complications, as in Europe. Diplomacy, with its AMEKICAN DESTINY. 67 intrigues and wars to maintain the " balance of power," will make up the great body of national history, and absorb those energies which should be employed in advancing the means of human well-being. But we will not speculate upon probabilities so re- mote. We will presume the success of rebellion, and one nation south, another north. The evil would still be verv ijreat. There must be armed thousands main- tained by the two Governments to be ready for war at any moment. Two such nations, even if both were free, and still less with slavery in one of them, could not exist by the side of each other, without frequent broils and col- lisions. Standing armies exhaust the resources of nations and retard the progress of civilization by a double result. They withdraw able-bodied men from the productive energies of the country, and are at the same time a tax upon the industrial forces which remain. The enormous daily expense of the present war must give us some idea of the cost of maintaining a standing army of two or three hundred thousand men even in times of peace. This has done a great deal to retard the progress of Europe ; and that we, as a nation, have heretofore been free from this encumbrance, is doubtless one of the reasons why we have made such rapid strides in so much that makes a nation great and happy. But standing armies imply war, and the international wars of Europe have done much to exhaust her resources and paralyze her prosperity. Ouizot savs — and we mav see it in historv for ourselves OS AMERICAN DESTINY. — that " for nearly three centuries, foreign relations form the most important part of history." " Foreign rela- tions, wars, treaties, alliances, alone oeeupy the attention and fill the page of history." Sad result of the political divisions of a continent ! Unhappy fruits of maintaining the balance of power among neighboring nations ! Let this continent be warned ! And now is the crisis when this warning needs most to be heeded. And even if this critical juncture should be safely passed, we have need to guard against others, and these truths should be uni- versally recognized as elements of our national preser- vation. We may profit by the shipwreck of others to avoid the rock on which they split. There are causes clearly discernible in the history of Europe, for the divisions of that continent, which do not now, and never have obtained here. Her political institutions were developed out of the chaos of barbarism, and she had to unite smaller jurisdictions into larger ones ; and she did this as well as the status of civilization would permit at the period when national organization was effected. The facilities of intercourse between a people, for the transmission of intelligence, for travel and transportation — those accompaniments of civilization which bring re- mote sections of country near each other and bind them together ; the resemblance or the difference of languages spoken ; the antipathies, prejudices, sympathies of the peoples— all these are elements which go to determine the geographical extent of a nation. Original difference of Ian- AMERICAN DESTINY. G ( J guago, local prejudices, the want of civilization contri- buted to limit the European nationalities to the small extent of territory which, for the most part, they occupy. These causes have not operated against us. Local dis- tinctions on account of language do not even obtain here. There are no real causes to contract the geographical boundaries of our government ; while, on the other hand, the constant increase of facilities for the commercial and social intercourse of one section with another, and the specializations of the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests, in the creation of dependence be- tween different sections of the country, demand, in the name of science, common sense, justice, and the good of the people, that this government shall remain one and undivided. We cannot, therefore, afford to allow the present or any other rupture to become permanent, and entail upon ourselves and our children all the disadvantages and calami- ties incident thereto. It would not be wise to prepare the political stage of this country for the reenaction of the tragedies of Europe. Better any sacrifice than this. Even if we should lose great battles, or if European in- terference should threaten, it would be better to rally the people anew even to the raising and equipment of millions of men, and sustain the war at this enormous cost, rather than entail division and its necessary calam- ities on the future political life of this continent. This war is costing immensely in men and property ; but if. 70 AMERICAN DESTINY. thereby, the integrity of the Union can be maintained, it will be an economy both in men and means, if only a brief period of the future be taken into the account. We are often reduced to a choice of evils. War is a great evil, but it may prevent others still greater. The indis- criminate arming of slaves and the spread of incendiary fires would be great calamities, but nevertheless justi- fiable, if the only means of self-defence, or of preventing still greater and more enduring calamities. But there need be no violation of the ethics of war, no infringement of the rights of humanity. The North is strong in its natural resources, strong in the justice of its cause : it has risen to vindicate the cardinal law of civilization, and by this shall it conquer. There appeared to Constantine a vision of the cross, with the motto, " By this conquer." Science has descended in these last days to dwell among mankind. In her hand is a scroll which she unfolds before the nations, and they read, " Unity, the consum- mation of social and political destiny." Thereupon, turn- ing to our nation in the hour of trial, she says : " The time is approaching when the principle of unitization must sweep a wider circle, and you are chosen to inau- gurate this new era in the destiny of nations. Thus far you have done well ; be true to the work so happily begun ; carry it unflinchingly through this ordeal, and you will be the greatest Power for good upon the earth. There must be an extension of political organization — a widening of the sphere of political unity ; and through AMERICAN DESTINY. 71 your example and influence will the nations be gathered into a larger fold." And pointing to the scroll, she adds : " Let ' Union ' be eternally your motto ; by this con- quer ! " If we should apply no other than a superficial inter- pretation to history, overlooking the great laws by which development proceeds, and thence conclude that the world is to follow doggedly in the footsteps of the past, we should anticipate a future far less beautiful in grand results than Destiny has in store for the generations to come. Are we to have the Empire of Rome or of Charle- magne over again ? In the Roman Empire there were no common interests ; no representation ; no communica- tion among the people; no intersection of the country by the network of roads— only great military roads leading from province to province ; no specialization of industrial and commercial interests ; no civilized depend- ence of one part on another ; no natural ties as yet de- veloped to their real significance between the several countries of the Roman Empire ; it was held together by the strong and despotic arm of Rome. The Empire of Charlemagne embraced the territory of Middle and Western Europe, inhabited by barbarous peoples, iso- lated, warlike, and speaking different languages ; there were none of the civilized bonds of union ; only the genius of Charlemagne held them together ; and upon his death, the huge fabric he had reared, naturally fell to pieces. 72 AMERICAN DESTINY. The Spanish Empire is but another instance showing that geographical and other elements of disconnection must not overbalance those which relate remote sections to each other, and bind them together in a common interest, else dissolution will be the result. In respect to the United States, all these conditions are reversed. Every interest in the natural course of development points to union — demands union, and, in the triumph of justice, shall have union. Is there anything in the way of this union ? Is there a morbid growth — a cause of irritation and disease tend- ing to dissolution ? Then, it must be removed. Is am- bitious and reckless demagoguism to be apprehended ? Then educate the people and diffuse science. But is there not still a worse devil to be cast out ? Where slavery is, you cannot educate the people, you cannot diffuse science ; and without enlightenment there can be no political justice, since unprincipled demagogues will sway all political destiny. Slavery cannot always exist side by side with freedom ; it is the natural enemy of union, the enemy of civilization. Prominent secession leaders have admitted that slavery is the cause of this war, boasting at the same time that the confederate constitu- tion is founded on a scientific distinction of races. "With- out slavery there could be no sufficient motive for the independent national existence of the South. Had there been no slavery, there had been no civil war. This is, at the present time, the political significance of the institu- AMERICAN DESTINY. 73 tion. There is no safety but in its extinction — so far at least as the border Slave States are concerned, in order to overthrow its power in the United States Senate, to enlarge the sympathies of freedom, and weaken and cir- cumscribe the chances for revolutionary movements which slavery will be ready at any critical moment to pre- cipitate against the Union. If we have not misinterpreted the law of development, slavery, as it exists in this country, is a morbid political condition, a social disease, which stands in the way of the natural course of social evolution. In this law, therefore, is written the doom of slavery. The enlightened world will not always permit it to blast the fair field of civiliza- tion by its poisonous presence. There is a law of human movement by which pre- dominating conditions extend and perpetuate themselves, overcoming those which are weaker and on the wane Wo observed this in our brief survey of the feudal sys- tem. Freedom is now in the ascendant, and slavery must go down. And since secession is the child of sla- very, and both at war with the cardinal principles of progressive civilization, it is meet that both should fall together. This war may not directly extinguish slavery, and it may ; we do not see the end. But if not directly, we believe the war is, nevertheless, indirectly setting those forces into action which will eventually extinguish the institution. If the " confederacy "' should be destroyed, 4 74 AMERICAN DESTINY. as, if not saved by foreign intervention, it certainly will be, slavery, if not already dead, will be pent up, and. in that case, will soon die by its own hands. Immediate interests control us more than those which are remote ; interests which affect ourselves, more than those which affect our descendants. Citizens of the southern States, to save a petty individual interest, are nursing in the bosom of society a malignant canker, which, if let alone, must one day, in the inevitable course of destiny, eat into its vitals. Heroic treatment will alone meet the demands of the case. It must be a surgical operation that will penetrate to the very roots of the invading tumor. The salvation of the South itself, as well as of the Union, hangs upon the extinction of slavery. Indeed, the South has far more interest than the North in the restora- tion of political health as the condition of political union ; and she would see it so, if slavery had not made her blind. The elimination of slavery would, in the end, be clear gain to her, while she would reap equally with the North the advantages of union, and escape the disadvan- tages and calamities which, as we ha\e seen, must inev- itably follow in the wake of confirmed disunion. The writer of this work bases his opposition to sla- very solely upon politico-scientific grounds ; he urges the recognition of a great law of human development, that its ben rings on human destiny may be fairly seen, and human endeavor more wisely directed to the achievement of the AMERICAN DESTINY. <0 end ' : so devoutly to be wished." The discussion of American Destiny in all its ramifications would involve the discussion of the ultimate fate of the negro race on this continent ; but that is not within the range of our present purpose. We have aimed only to indicate the law of development from the simple to the complex, over which a necessary unity at length prevails ; to show that this law obtains in the political as in all other realms ; to insist that political unity should enlarge its area as facilities for intercommunication permit, and the inter- relation of industrial, commercial, and social interests demand ; that the jurisdiction of the political unity should correspond to the extension of general interests, so far as may be possible in the face of physical necessities not yet overcome in the progress of civilization. We would apply the doctrine more especially to the present crisis in American affairs, to enable us to realize that all our sacrifices to maintain the Union, are fully warranted by the great principle of human development which is in- volved in the contest. If we have rightly interpreted history and the law, these sacrifices are justified by a double consideration. The first, which is negative — to avoid the entanglements, broils, and conflicts of neighboring nations, and the consequent exhaustion of the resources of civilization, through which its progress would necessarily be retarded ; the second, which is positive — to maintain a vast political organization on this continent in accordance with the 76 AMERICAN DESTINY. demands of a higher civilization, as the only sure guarantee for the integrity of the " Monroe doctrine," and the ac- complishment of a great political mission, by reacting, upon Europe, and leading her isolated and fragmentary nationalities into a higher unity, involving order, authority, and the economy of power. It is the selfish interest of the crowned heads of the little nations of Europe to maintain things as they are, with a principality and a palace for each puppet of royalty. Hence their costly machinery for maintaining the " balance of power." There may have been a use for this in the ignorance of the masses, when the extension of sovereignty was often but the increase of despotism ; but there is no such need in the advanced culture of the people and the progress of civilization. Formerly there was no public sentiment ; but with the rise of civilized methods, it became developed, and it has gradually en- larged its sphere, till, as a writer on dynamical physiol- ogy remarks, " we now hear of the public opinion of Europe." (Draper.) And we believe that before this public sentiment, thrones are doomed to topple, and scep- tres and diadems to fall, to make way for the more liberal and comprehensive political organizations of an advancing and triumphant civilization. And herein ap- pears a glimpse of the political mission of the American Union, destined itself to become still more comprehen- sive in the inevitable fluctuation and change of the polit- ical elements. It is a hackneyed theme that all the AMJEKICAN DESTINY. 77 natural features of our country, its mountains, rivers, valleys, lakes, are on a grand scale ; it is, therefore, meet that we should lead the civilized world in the movement of political unity. When Russia shall have more completely filled up the measure of her civilization, and general intelligence shall have secured the liberty of the subject, and laid forever the ghost of political absolutism, it may become the mission of the younger nation to infuse new life into the political system of Europe. With such a nation on the East, and a great continental policy well advanced in the Western World, Middle and Western Europe could hardly maintain its present divided, discordant, and consequently feeble condition : there must be union then, if not before. With Europe thus united, having outgrown the diplomatic intrigues and exhausting wars of jealous and ambitious rulers, the dream of ' : universal peace" may realize the inauguration of its fulfilment, and civilization come to have a meaning which, as yet, is folded up in the bosom of prophecy — the clearer proph- ecy, we believe, of science and history. We are con- fident that the prestige of the past and the earnest of the future are for us and our cause ; that our nation will not be torn to pieces and sunk to the dead level of political imbecility, but will victoriously avouch the integrity of American unity, and gradually gain the advance in the grand march of civilization — and lead the nations for hundreds of years to come ! 78 AMERICAN DESTINY. We may well be proud that we are Americans, and that our lot is cast in these times. Let us never abase our position by the least approach to ignoble compro- mise ; let us shrink from no responsibility, but acquit ourselves as becomes an intelligent people conscious of a noble destiny ! THE END. ■mm* «»i i% WML/ J. A A A A . , jMV;j^ to r.UJ\ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS etc cl • rn^m ^E " v croc < r <<.. SEgC- :_ c * <-,:? «v c «eag ^ OK. f 012 026 750 4 9 «* «■ ^'^S? g --Cer L. CCCC rccc^ ,<