THE WAR A CONTEST FOR IDEAS.

One of those curious pamphlets, or brochures, as they call them, which the French political writers make the frequent medium of their discussions, was lately published at Paris, under the title of 'France, Mexico, and the Confederate States.' It is less a discussion of the Mexican question than an adroit appeal, under cover of it, in behalf of the Southern confederacy. It addresses itself to the enthusiastic temperament of Frenchmen, with the specious sophism, underlying its argument, that the South is fighting for ideas, the North for power. This is a sophism largely current abroad, and not without its dupes even at home. The purpose of this paper is to expose the nakedness of it.

Fighting for ideas may be a very sublime thing, and it may likewise be a very ridiculous thing. The valorous knight of La Mancha set forth to fight for ideas, and he began to wage war with windmills. He fought for ideas, indeed, but his distempered imagination quite overlooked the fact that they were ideas long since dead, beyond hope of resurrection. And it is but the statement of palpable truth to declare that whatever ideas the South is fighting for now, are of a like obsolete character. The glory of feudalism, as a system of society, is departed; and its attendant glories of knight-errantry and human slavery are departed with it. Don Quixote thought to reestablish the one, and the South deludes itself with the hope of reestablishing the other. Times and ideas have changed since the days of feudalism, and the South only repeats in behalf of slavery the tragic farce of Don Quixote in behalf of knight-errantry. Both alike would roll back the centuries of modern civilization, and, reversing the dreams of Plato and Sir Thomas More, would hope to find a Utopia in the dark ages of the past.

We do not ridicule, much less deny the power of ideas. On the contrary, we believe heartily in ideas, and in men of ideas. We accept ideas as forces of civilization, and we would magnify their office as teachers and helpers of man, in his poor strivings after good. Man is ever repeating the despondent cry of the Psalmist, 'Who will show us any good?' It is the mission of ideas, the ministering angels of civilization, to lift him into a realm of glorious communion with good and spiritual things, and so inspire him to heroic effort in his work.

Nevertheless, while thus willing to glorify the office of ideas, we hold them to be of less worth than institutions. That is, ideas, of themselves, are of little practical value. An idea, disjoined from an institution, is spirit without body; just as an institution that does not embody a noble idea, is body without spirit. An idea, to be effective, must be organized; an institution, to be effective, must have breathed into it the breath of life, must be vivified with an idea. It is only thus, in and through institutions, that ideas can exert their proper influence upon society.

This is, indeed, the American principle of reform. The thorough conviction of it in the hearts of the American people has thus far saved us from the anarchy of radicalism, which is ever agitating new ideas; and is now destined to save us from the bolder-faced anarchy of revolution, seeking to overthrow our institutions.

But fighting for ideas, what does it mean? The French Revolution (that great abortion of the eighteenth century and of history) was fought for ideas, and ended in despotism. Does fighting for ideas mean despotism? The French Revolution went directly to the root of the question. It struck, as radicalism can never help but strike, at the very foundations of society. Hence, in France, the abolition of institutions (the safeguards of ideas), and the consequent check of the great principles which the Revolution set out to establish. Thus it is that the French Revolution has made itself the great example of history, warning nations against the crude radicalisms of theorists. It is not enough to fight for ideas—we must fight also for institutions. Yet society seems never to learn the lesson which Nature never tires of repeating, that all true growth is gradual. Political science must start with the first axiom of natural science, that 'Nature acts by insensible gradations.' Radicalism is not reform. Radicalism and conservatism must combine together to make reform. An eminent divine and scholar lately illustrated the point thus: 'The arm of progressive power rests always on the fulcrum of stability.' This statement is exhaustive, and sums up the case.

But let us examine the question of ideas a little more closely, and see whether, indeed, it is the South or the North that is fighting for ideas in this contest. And let us interpret ideas, according to the etymology of the word, to mean those things which the mind sees, and the conscience accepts and recognizes and knows, to be just elements, or principles, of civilization. For it is only such ideas that call forth a response from the mighty instincts of the masses. The common conscience of mankind tests the ideas always, as the apostle teaches us to try the spirits, 'whether they are of God.'

I. THE IDEA OF POLITICAL EQUALITY.

It will hardly be disputed that the great idea of the age is the democratic idea, or the idea of political equality. It is the idea that all men are kings, because equals: just as the highest idea of theology is, at last, that all men are ordained to be priests unto God, The problem of political philosophy is to make this idea a reality and fact. Our institutions have this for their sublime mission. We are seeking to demonstrate, in the American way, the essential truth of those ideas which failed of their perfect fruit in France, because not rightly organized and applied. America is the youngest and last-born of the nations; and to her it has been intrusted to develop the democratic idea in the system of representative government. Politics is thus made to harmonize and be at one with progress. The last-born of nations is set for the teaching and developing of the last-born of governmental principles. If, moreover, we regard America, according to the teachings of physical geography, as the first-born of the continents, we may discover another beautiful harmony. For our democratic system, in basing itself on the idea of political equality does, in effect, start from the very first principle of all true government; and this first principle of government thus finds its temple and home in the first of the continents.

But let us not be misled by specious names. Let us not mistake for political equality the crude fancies of idealists, who would reverse the order of creation, and declare an equality that does not exist. Political equality neither assumes nor infers social equality; and therefore is not subversive of social order. It does not presuppose natural equality; and, therefore, is not contrary to palpable evidence, and hence unphilosophical and false. Political equality is but the corollary and logical result of that maxim of our system, set forth in our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.'

Political equality is, therefore, the essential condition of our republic. It is the alpha and omega of our political philosophy. It is the first factor in the problem of our government. It is the organized idea of our nation, and is embodied in that nation. It is the lifespring of our institutions. It is the basis of our government. It is what makes the United States of America the hope of humanity.

While, therefore, political equality may not be the fact of our government, the nation stands for that idea. The founders of the government were content with affirming the great idea; and they left to the benignant influences of time and conscience and Christianity, under our institutions, the work of reducing the idea to fact. For more than half a century the work has gone on, and still 'goes bravely on.' In peace and war the same magnificent Constitution is over us, and that Constitution, avoiding designedly the odious word slave, is a chart and covenant of freedom.

Directly opposed to this idea is the organization of the Southern confederacy—the essential and substantial antipodes of our system. The United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that this is the stone which the builders of our government refused, and that it is now become the headstone of the corner of a divinely instituted nation. The blasphemy that hesitated not to declare John Brown equal with Jesus Christ, is hardly worse than this; for John Brown was, at least, an honest fanatic. The traitorous chiefs of the Southern rebellion are neither fanatics nor honest men. They have stifled the voice of conscience, and are bad men.

If their scheme of society is true, then our faith in God, and our faith in man as the child of God, are false faiths; 'and we are found false witnesses of God.' For it has been common hitherto to believe in the loftiest capacities of man, as the child of God, and made in the divine image; and this belief has had the sanction of all ages. Cheered and strengthened by such a belief, men have struggled bravely and steadily against priestcraft and kingcraft, against the absolutism of power in every form. The magnificent ideal of a government which the masses of mankind should themselves establish and uphold, has been the quickening life of all republics since time began. It is the noblest of optimisms; and, like religion, has never been without a witness in the human soul, ever inspiring the genius of prophecy and song, ever moving the great instincts of humanity. Science, fathoming all things, gave expression to this instinct and hope and belief of the ages in the principle of political equality as a basis of government. It is, in other words, the science of political self-government. It was reserved for the nineteenth century to develop the idea, for the American nation to illustrate its practical power and its splendid possibilities. The question of man's capacity for self-government in at issue now in the contest between the North and South, and its champion is the North.

II. THE IDEA OF NATIONALITY.

There is another idea involved in this war; and, unlike the idea of political equality, it is sanctioned by the precedents of all ages and all nations, so as to preclude any possibility that it should now be disputed. It bases itself on that principle of order which is heaven's first law, and so commends itself to men as the fitting first law of society. It is the idea of nationality; in a word, of government. Like the idea of political equality, it also finds its champion in the North.

The Southern confederacy is the organized protest of anarchy against law. It represents in politics that doctrine in religious thought which declares every man a law unto himself. It kicks against the restraints of constitutions and laws, declaring virtually that when a law, or a constitution ordaining laws, ceases to be agreeable, its binding force is gone. For a similar and equally valid reason, some men (and, alas! some women), disregarding the solemn sanctions of the marriage tie, have been willing to set aside this first law of the family and of home. The Southern confederacy also makes light of national agreements, disposing of them according to the facile doctrine of repudiation, which its perjured chief once adopted as the basis of a system of state finance. It is eminently in accordance with the fitness of things, that the man who could counsel his State to repudiate its bonds, should stand at the head of a confederacy which began its existence by repudiating the sacred agreement to which the faith and fortune of all its members were solemnly pledged, and under the broad shield of whose protection they had grown prosperous and powerful. If one may be permitted to express an opinion different from Mr. Stephens's, it might be said that the corner stone of the Southern confederacy is properly repudiation. On the other hand, the cause of the United States is the cause of order. It is also the cause of freedom.

It is important to note the union of these two forces of civilization; for hitherto, in the great wars of history, liberty has generally opposed itself to order, and has too often seemed to be synonymous with anarchy. The passions of the masses have too often burst forth, in great revolutions, like volcanic eruptions, carrying devastation and destruction in their path; The French Revolution stands for the type and instance of all these terrible catastrophes. This war of ours presents a different spectacle; for in the maintenance of it the two principles of freedom and order go hand in hand. It is this union of them which demands for the United States, in this contest, the support of both the great parties of civilization—the conservatives and the radicals. It is, therefore, preëminently a just war, because waged in the combined interests of liberty and order.

But, it is objected, you, in effect, deny the right of revolution. No; on the contrary, we establish it. For the right of revolution is no right for any people unless they have wrongs. The right of revolution is not an absolute, it is a relative right. Like all such rights, it has its limitations—the limitation of the public law and the public conscience. For neither the public law nor the public conscience sanctions revolution for the sole sake of revolution. That brave old revolutionist of early Rome, Brutus, understood this well, and though his country was groaning under the oppression of Tarquin, he sighed for 'a cause.' There must be a cause for revolution, and such a cause as will commend itself to men's consciences, as well as to the just principles of law and equity.

Some men seem to think that revolution is, of itself, a blessed thing. They love change in government for the sake of change. When Julius Cæsar invaded Gaul he found just such men, and he characterized them, in his terse military way, as those who 'studied new things,' that is, desired constantly a renewal of public affairs, or renovation of government. He found these men, moreover, his most ready tools, even in his designs against their country's liberties; and it would seem as though this revolutionary characteristic of the early inhabitants of Gaul had remained impressed upon their descendants ever since.

We repeat that the right of revolution is a limited right. An absolute and unlimited right of revolution would only be the other extreme of an absolute and unlimited government; and this is not the age of absolutism in matters of government. Just as absolute liberty is an impracticable thing, in the present constitution of human beings, so the absolute right of revolution, which derives its highest title from the sacred right of liberty, is equally impracticable. We must be careful how we use these words liberty and revolution. Words are things in a time of earnest work like the present. The war is settling the old scholastic dispute for us, and is making us all realists. Liberty and loyalty and law are no longer brave words merely: they are things, and things of tremendous power; and some men slink away from them. But we need to remember that liberty does not mean license. The political liberty of our time, testing the truth of our representative democracy, is constitutional liberty. It presupposes an organic law, giving force and effect to it: and without this organic law, liberty is a delusion and a dream—a vague unsubstantiality. Liberty is like the lightning. To be made an agent of man's political salvation, it must be brought down from its home in the clouds, and put under the restraints and checks of institutions. The institutions protect it; it sanctifies the institutions. In its unchecked power, like the lightning, it annihilates and overwhelms man. Unchecked, it becomes a reckless license, disgracing history and its own fair name with such scenes as the French Revolution, and causing the martyred defenders of its sacred majesty to cry out, in bitter agony of disappointment: 'O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!'

In fact, the liberty that is valuable is the liberty that is regulated by law; just as the law that is valuable is the law that has the spirit of liberty. This is the American doctrine of constitutional liberty, as it has ever been expounded by our great statesmen and orators; and it commends itself to the sound sense of all reflecting men.

In seeking, therefore, to subvert our Constitution, the South attack the principle of liberty, which is the basis of it, and which it guarantees. More than this, they attack the principle of constitutional liberty; for their secession is in virtue of that unchecked liberty which is license, that absolute liberty which is anarchy. They are not contending for the sacred right of revolution. It is treason against that majestic principle to apply it to the cause of the South. They were not oppressed; they were not even controlled by a dominant party opposed to them; their will was almost law, for it made our laws. According to the theory of our Constitution, they possessed equal rights with all other sections of the Union; under the practice of it, and in fact, they had gradually come to possess and were actually wielding greater power than all other sections. It is thus seen how vain and absurd is the plea that they were driven into revolution to redress wrongs, or that they revolted and seceded for the purpose of preserving rights. Their rights were neither actually assailed, nor were likely to be assailed. The protest of that eminent statesman of the South who afterward ('oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!') became the second officer of its traitorous government, is conclusive evidence on this point. The Southern rebellion is simply and entirely the effort to secure exclusive control where formerly the South had a joint control. Robert Toombs said, in a conversation, in Georgia, in the winter of 1860-'61: 'We intend, sir, to have a government of our own and we won't have any compromises.' To the same import is the letter of Mason to Davis, in 1856, which has lately seen the light. To one not blinded by prejudice, indeed, the evidences are overwhelming of a long-plotted conspiracy on the part of certain leading politicians, without the knowledge and contrary to the known intentions of the Southern people. The Southern rebellion is simply the attempt to break up a constitutional government, by politicians who had become dissatisfied with the natural and inevitable workings and tendencies of it, even though administered by themselves. It is simply, therefore, the question of anarchy that we have to deal with. Therefore, we say that the North is fighting for the idea of government.

We are not seeking to perpetuate oppressive power. On the other hand, the rebellion is a flagrant attempt to organize oppression. We are seeking to perpetuate power, it is true, but a power which has stood for nearly a hundred years, and must continue to stand, if it stand at all, as a bulwark against oppression. We are vindicating our right to be, as a nation. We are proving our title to rank among the powers of the earth. We are vindicating the majesty of our supreme organic law. That supreme organic law is the Constitution. It ordains for itself a method of amendment, so as to leave no right of revolution against it. It admits no right of revolution, because in ordaining and establishing it the parties to it expressly merged that right in another principle, adopted to avoid the necessity of a resort to revolution. In other words, the right of revolution is in our Constitution exalted into the peaceful principle of amendment. Instead, therefore, of really being denied, the right of revolution is, indeed, enlarged and consecrated in our system of government, which rests upon that right. In vindicating and maintaining, therefore, that system, we vindicate and maintain with it the right of revolution. But we deny any such thing as a right of revolution for the sole sake of revolution; because it leads to anarchy. We deny the right of revolution for the sake of oppression; because it leads to absolutism. Revolution in the interests of order, justice, and freedom, we hold to be the only right worthy of the name, and God help our nation never to oppose such a revolution!

Since the foregoing was written, an article in Frazer's Magazine, for last October, has fallen under the writer's notice, which discusses the point under consideration, and expresses similar views with those here stated. An extract from it is given to show how the question is viewed from a British stand-point:

'The principle of American independence was, that when a considerable body of men are badly governed and oppressed by a government under which they live, they have a right to resist and withdraw from it; and unless everything in the history of England of which we have been accustomed to boast, from Magna Charta to the Reform Bill, was a crime, this principle is perfectly true. To deny to the United States, as most of our public writers did deny to them, the right of putting down resistance not justified by oppression, and to impose upon them the duty of submitting at once to any resistance whatsoever, whether justified or not, was equivalent to maintaining that chronic anarchy was the only state of things which could exist in North America.'

It is refreshing to read in a British periodical so clear a statement of this just distinction. We cannot forbear to cite another extract from the same article, because it confirms so clearly the argument of this paper:

'The Dutch fought the Spaniards for their hearths, homes, and churches; the French fought all Europe with famine and the guillotine behind them, and empire and plenty in front. The English in India had the pride of superior race and the memory of inexpiable injuries to urge them against the Sepoys; but if ever a nation in this world sacrificed itself deliberately and manfully to an idea, this has been the case with the Americans.'

What is this idea to which we have thus bravely sacrificed ourselves, even a phlegmatic Englishman being the judge? It is the idea of the nation—the idea that the nation is the gift of God, to be cherished and defended as a sacred trust; and that we can no more rid ourselves of its obligations than we can rid ourselves of the obligations of home or the church. To the reckless assertion of those who say that the United States is, in this war, actuated by the lust for power, and is not moved by the inspiration of great ideas, we oppose the foregoing candid statement of a third party, and one not very likely to be prejudiced in our favor. It is the testimony of an unwilling witness, and therefore of great weight.

Summing up the points that have been considered in this paper, it seems clear that so far as the war is a contest for ideas, the North, standing for the United States, has the right of it. For, first, we contend for political equality, the grand idea of the age and the ages; comprehending within itself, and presupposing, as a logical premise, the grander idea of liberty. Thus also we vindicate the rights of man, as a fact of government and as a principle of political philosophy. And, secondly, we contend for the sacred right of order, as opposed to the destructive radicalism of revolution for the sake of oppression and not in the name of liberty.

We believe that our nation has been born, in the providence of God, to the magnificent mission of developing the democratic idea, of the rule of the people—the idea that every man is a king, and that humanity itself is royal because made in the image of God. The nation is now vindicating that mission before the world. In the success of it all the great ideas that cheer on our poor humanity in its toiling march—liberty, justice, political order—confirmed and made sure by a government organized for the purpose of securing and maintaining them, are bound up; and—with that mission those ideas, as organized powers, must live or die.