THE VALUE OF THE UNION.

I.

We are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for our national existence—for the preservation of the Union, for these are synonymous. To succeed, we need an animating spirit that shall carry us through all obstacles; that shall smile at repeated defeat; that shall ever buoy us up with strong hope and confidence in the ultimate success of our efforts. Such a spirit cannot flow from a simple love of opposition, excited by the wicked bravado of our opponents; nor from a desire to prove ourselves the stronger: neither can it flow from the mere wish to destroy slavery. None of these motives singly, nor all of them combined, are sufficient to sustain us in this hour of trial, or to carry us clear through to the desired goal. The only motive which can do this, and which, in the heart of every loyal man, should be of such large proportions as immensely to dwarf all lower ones, is one that can flow only from a clear comprehension of the value of the Union, coupled with a conviction, arising out of this intelligent valuation, that the Union, being what it is—containing within itself untold, and yet undeveloped blessings to ourselves and to the human race at large—is nothing less than a most precious gift of God; given into our charge, to be ours as long as we deserve its enjoyment by our individual and national adherence to truth and right; a conviction also, that our Union, from the very marked Providential circumstances attending its establishment, is in no small sense a divine work; and hence, that we may rest in the sure hope that God will not permit His own work to be destroyed, except by our refusing to coöperate with Him in its preservation.

All our blessings, natural and spiritual, are enjoyed by us only in the degree of our free and voluntary coöperation with the intentions of the Divine Giver. No good thing is forced upon us, and nothing that we ought to have is withheld if we put forth the power granted us to obtain it. The atmosphere surrounds us, but the lungs must open and expand to receive it. The food is before us, but the mouth must open, and the hands convey it thither, or it is of no service. Light flows from the sun, but the eye must open to enjoy it. And so with the blessings which we enjoy in the Union; we must use our active powers to profit by them; and at this crisis we must not only act to enjoy them, but must strain every nerve to preserve them. The nation is now on its trial, to be tested, as to whether it adequately values the divine gift of the Union. If it does thus value it, it will use diligently and carefully all the abundant resources which lie around it and within it, like an atmosphere—wealth, population, energy, intelligence, mechanical ingenuity, scientific skill, and all the needed materièl of warfare. It is rich in all this, far more so than the South. All this, Providence lays at the feet of the nation. It can do no more. The nation, as one man, must now do its part, or continue to do as it has done; it must coöperate, must put forth a determined will—a will tenfold more resolute, more fixed and immovable to preserve the Union, than is that of its enemies to destroy it. This will cannot exist without a clear, intellectual appreciation of the worth of the Union; of its value as an agent, which, if rightly employed, will continue to develop increasing power to humanize and Christianize men, and to elevate, to broaden, and intensify human life and happiness more than any form of political institution that the world has ever witnessed.

Full of this conviction, we shall then, individually and collectively, be resolved that this noble continent, stretching three thousand miles from ocean to ocean, and opened like a new world to man, just at an epoch when religious and political liberty, starting into life in Europe, might be transplanted into this virgin soil, where thus far they have developed into this fair republic—we shall then be resolved that this broad, rich territory shall be forever devoted

To man's development—not to his debasement. To liberty and free order—not despotism and forced order. To an ever-advancing civilization—not to a retrograding barbarism. To popular self-government—not to the rule of a slave-holding oligarchy. To religion, education, and morality—not to irreligion, ignorance, and licentiousness. To educated and dignified labor—not to brutalized labor under the lash. To individual independence and equal rights—not to individual subjugation to caste. To peace—and not to border wars between conflicting States. To unity, harmony, and national strength—not to disunity, civil discord, and subjection to foreign powers.

All these blessings on the one hand are guaranteed in the Union, and only there—all their opposite horrors are involved as inevitably and certainly in the Southern lunacy, resting on slavery and secession as its corner stones! Madness most unparalleled!

We will look now at a singular and beautiful fact—for fact it is, account for it as we may. It is this: The course of civilization upon this globe has apparently followed the course of the sun. Sunlight and warmth travel from east to west. The moral and intellectual illumination of the nations has travelled the same route. From central or farther Asia, it goes to Assyria, and successively to Egypt, to Greece—thence to Italy and Rome—then to western Europe, England, France, Spain. From thence it leaps the Atlantic. The Bible, church, and school house, with the Pilgrims and other colonies, scatter the primeval darkness and savagism from the Atlantic coast. Still 'westward the march of empire takes its way' to the Alleghanies, to the Mississippi; thence, by another leap, across two thousand miles of continent, where it sparkles with a golden lustre on the queenly California, enthroned upon the far-off Pacific shore (yet by the miraculous telegraph within whispering distance). There the newest and highest civilization comes face to face with the oldest on the earth—hoary with ages; greets it in China across the wide Pacific, and the circle of the globe is joined.

Now the civilization inaugurated upon our continent, in these United States, may be said to be, indeed is, the result of all that have preceded it. It combines somewhat of the elements of all the civilizations that have been strung along the earth's eastern semi-circumference, besides others, peculiar to itself. And why should it not be considered as the bud and opening flower growing out of the summit of all the past, and for which the long ages have made toilsome preparation. Long time does it take for stem and leaves to unfold, but in the end comes the flower, and then the fruit. But here, in this bud of splendid promise, the American Union, lurks the foul worm of slavery, threatening to blast the fondest hopes of mankind by destroying this glorious augury of a mature civilization, where man shall develop into the full earthly stature of a being created in the divine image. Shall it be? Not if the North is faithful to God, to mankind, and to itself.

Let us take courage. The westward-travelling sunbeams have ever to oppose the western darkness, but they conquer always. So American civilization, also, has its darkness and barbaric elements to battle with, but they too, God willing, shall vanish before it.

Why have we been forced into this desperate, unexpected conflict? One reason may possibly be, that by it, we may be aroused to a living sense of the great value of our inheritance, the Union, when threatened with its loss. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.' Benefit's daily enjoyed, with hardly a care or effort on our part, are not prized as they should be. When, however, we are threatened with their loss, we awaken from indifference. A new sense of their value springs up, and a severe contest for their preservation stamps their true worth indelibly on the heart. Threaten to cut off the air a man breathes, the food and drink that sustains him, and you rouse all his energies into new life; and he now prizes these common but unthought-of blessings as he never did before. And so it will be one effect of this contest, to arouse us as a nation to see clearly our vantage ground in the world's progress, and to stir us up as individuals, to lead higher and truer lives, each for his own and for his country's sake. And when this Southern insane wickedness is quelled, and the great American nation can rest and breathe freely once more, it will then calmly ponder the past, and survey the future. In the degree of its religion and virtue, and next of its intelligence and energy, it will, in the course of time, clearly perceive and wisely inaugurate a new social and industrial life, which will be as far in advance of the present system of free labor as the latter is itself in advance of slavery. What that is, cannot here be stated. It will, however, be but the inevitable result of agencies and influences now at work, and only interrupted and endangered by this pro-slavery rebellion.

With these remarks, we enter upon our topic: 'Why is the Union priceless?'

There are two reasons, among others, why it is so, upon which we shall dwell at some length.

The first is involved in the great fact that such is man's nature as bestowed by the Creator, that only in the society of his fellows can that nature be developed into all its grandeur, and thus bestow and receive the utmost amount of happiness. The old adage, 'the more, the merrier,' might be truly amplified in many ways. When numbers are engaged in common pursuits, common interests, common views, common joys—each one zealous, earnest, life-giving and life-receiving—the happiness of the whole flows in upon each, and multiplies it a thousandfold.

Now if we look at history, keeping in mind the fact that the sole end of the Creator is the happiness of his creatures, and that this happiness is multiplied in proportion to the number of those who can be brought into accord and concert of action (and action, too, as diversified as possible)—looking at history, we say, under the light of this fact, it would seem as if Providence, in the course of human events, was in the continual effort, so to speak, to bring mankind into ever closer, more harmonious, and more multiplied and diverse relations; ever striving to mass the human race more and more into larger and larger communities; the different portions of which should still retain all the freedom they were prepared for, or needed to enjoy, while at the same time, they were in close but free membership with the common body and its central head.

We say that this seems to be the aim of Providence; while on the other hand, there is just as evidently to be seen the working of an opposing force, viz., human selfishness, human ignorance, individual ambition, ever seeking its own at the expense of others. A selfish, energetic, and ignorant spirit of individualism (as distinguished from an enlightened, large-minded, social individualism, which only becomes more marked and healthily developed by wide social intercourse), has in all ages tended to split up society into smaller parts, animated by mutual rivalry, jealousy, and hostility. When these antagonisms have been carried to a certain length the evil cures itself, by the rise of a despotism, which, as the instrument in the hands of Providence, brings all these clashing communities under a strong government, that binds them over, as it were, to keep the peace. By this, leisure and opportunity are given for the cultivation of the arts, the sciences, and industries, which tend to humanize men, and lessen the restless war spirit.

Thus the massing of many petty and warring tribes of barbarians into one large nation, and under a strong despotic monarchy, without which they could neither have been brought together nor kept together, is so much gained for human progress.

After this has continued for a time, when certain changes, certain ameliorations have been effected in the intellectual, social, and moral character of the nation, from the cultivation of the arts of peace, it is then allowed to be broken up, as the period may have arrived for the infusion of new elements and agencies of social progress which shall place men upon a higher plane of national existence. It falls to pieces through its own corruption and degeneracy, or by the invasion of stronger neighbors. It is swallowed up by the destroying force, and its people, its institutions, its ideas, its arts and sciences, its customs, laws, modes of life, or whatever else it may have elaborated, become mingled with those of surrounding nations, and a new political and social structure, formed out of the old and the new elements recombined anew and useless matter eliminated—stands forth in history; a structure tending still more than previous conditions to raise men in the scale of civilization—to bring them into closer relations—to enlarge and multiply their ideas—to quicken their moral and social impulses—to rub off the harsh angles of a selfish, narrow-minded individualism, and, in a word, to advance them yet more toward that degree of virtue and intelligence which is absolutely indispensable to the union of large masses of men into a nation, whose political system shall at once unite the utmost freedom for each individual with the most perfect general order also.

For the establishment of such a government we think the world has been carried through a long educational process; for in such a government, men will find the greatest earthly happiness, and also the greatest facilities and inducements to live in such a way as shall secure the happiness that lies beyond. And we think that the course of events in history will show that such a method as that described has been pursued by Providence, gathering men from the isolation and warfare of petty and independent tribes, into large despotisms, where the lower, rude, and selfish passions of wild men being held in restraint, some opportunity is given for peaceful pursuits and the development of a higher range of mental qualities—breaking these despotisms up again at certain periods, and massing their constituent elements into larger or differently constituted governments, with new agencies of progress added, according as human mental conditions and needs required.

That those great ancient monarchies, as the Assyrian, Persian, etc., had this effect, cannot well be doubted. But in the rise and fall of the great Roman empire, this appears very plainly. How many nations and small communities—far and near—isolated, independent, and more or less engaged in wars among themselves or in the constant apprehension of it—how many, we say, of such communities were gathered under the broad wings of the Roman eagle! From Spain and England on the west, to the borders of India on the east—from the Baltic on the north, to the deserts of Africa on the south—all were brought under the Roman sway; were brought under a common tranquillity (such as it was), under a common government, common laws, a common civilization more or less. All these countries were raised from a lower to a higher condition by their subjection to Roman domination. How far superior in England was the Roman civilization, its laws, manners, institutions, to the rude Anglican and Saxon life!

Rome thus established a grand humanizing unity over all these different regions, which otherwise had remained divided, hostile, or isolated from each other.

In the next place, through the instrumentality of this Roman unity, Christianity was established with comparative ease over the greater part of the then known world. This would perhaps have been very difficult if not impossible had these regions been occupied by a multitude of independent, and most likely, warring sovereignties.

Christianity thus widely planted, and firmly rooted upon this Roman civilization and by means of it, and this civilization, now perfected as far as it was capable of being, or standing in the way of further human progress, the empire fell to pieces, to make room for a new order of things, in which Christianity, the remains of Roman civilization, and the peculiar features of northern barbarian life, were the ingredients. These elements, after numberless combinations, dissolutions, and reconstructions, have resulted in the civilization of modern Europe. The progress toward this civilization has everywhere exhibited a constant tendency to larger and larger national unities—parts coalescing into wholes, and these into yet larger units. Witness the reduction of the number of German principalities, from one hundred or more to forty in the present day—the movement now on foot in Germany for a federal union among these forty—also the new Italian nationality. These we mention but incidentally, not intending here to trace the steps of this advance.

This progress toward unity has also been accompanied with a constant though slow advance in the principles of religious and political freedom.

But now, out of this European civilization, the result itself of the breaking up of the Roman semi-pagan, semi-Christian empire, and the multiplied interminglings, changes, and reconstructions of the Roman, the ecclesiastical, and northern barbarian elements—out of this European civilization, with its movements toward large nationalities—its progress toward religious and political freedom, and toward the acknowledgment and recognition of human rights; the substitution of constitutional monarchies for absolute, and the creation of representative bodies from the people as part of the government—out of all this, there springs as the fruit of all the long turmoil, the wars, the blood and treasure, the groans and tears, the martyrdoms of countless human lives, that during these long ages have, apparently in vain, been offered up in the cause of liberty, of order, of national peace, unity and freedom, of the right of man to the full and legitimate use of all his God-given faculties—there springs, we say, as the fruit, the result of all this suffering, our glorious American republic! our sacred—yes, our sacred Union! The fairest home that man has ever raised for man! To lay violent hands on which, should be deemed the blackest, most unpardonable sacrilege. It is the actualization of a dazzling vision, that may have often glowed in the imagination of many a patriot and statesman of olden times—which he may have vainly struggled to realize in his own age and nation, and died at last, heart-broken, amid the carnage of civil strife.

Our republic, we repeat, is the fruit of European struggles. If Europe had not passed through what she has, the United States would never have arisen. The principles of religious and political liberty sprang to birth in Europe, but there they have been of tardy growth, because surrounded and opposed by habits and institutions of early ages. They needed transplantation to a new and unoccupied soil, where they could enjoy the free air and sunshine, and not be overshadowed by anything else.

Here then we have our American civilization, formed out of what was good in European, combined with much else that has had its origin upon our own shores—the result of free principles allowed almost unobstructed play.

Let us survey the many elements of unity which we possess.

First in large measure, a common origin, viz., from England—that country of Europe farthest advanced of any other in religion, in politics, in freedom, and in science and industry.

Next, a common birth, as it were, in the form of numerous colonies, from the mother country; planted almost simultaneously, it may be said; possessed of common charters, which differed but slightly—containing systems of colonial administration, full of the spirit of popular rights and representation.

Next, a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and common interests, that should bind us together against all foes.

Lastly, a common territory, washed by the two remote oceans—a territory, in the present advanced state of science and of improved modes of travel and of communication, without any material dividing lines or barriers; but having, on the contrary, an immense river in the centre, stretching its arms a thousand miles on either side, as if on purpose to keep the vast region forever one and united.

Never was the birth of a nation so full of promise—so full of all the elements of a prosperous growth. If any one event can be said to be, more than another, under the divine guidance, then, all the circumstances attending the colonization of these shores and the formation of this Union, have been most minutely and marvellously providential. 'Here at last,' we may conceive some superior being to exclaim, who from his higher sphere has watched with deep sympathy the weary earth-journey of the human race, 'here at last, after these long ages of discipline and suffering, has a long desired goal been reached. Here a portion of the human family, having attained to such a degree of virtue and intelligence, combined with skill in political arrangements, and a commensurate knowledge of art, and science, and industrial pursuits—may be intrusted with liberty proportioned to their moral and intellectual advancement. Here they shall begin to live unitedly, more and more in accordance with the divine intentions than man has ever yet done. Millions on millions shall here be banded together into one vast, free, yet orderly community, where each individual shall enjoy all the liberty to which he is entitled by his moral character, and possess all possible facilities for the full and healthy development of his entire nature. Here, under the combined influence of true religion, intelligence, and freedom—and these must go hand in hand—the millions composing this great nation must become ever more and more united, prosperous, and happy.

This then, is the first reason why the Union is priceless—because in this Union, Providence appears to have reached an end, a goal, to which it has long been in the effort to conduct the human race, viz., the bringing a larger and more rapidly increasing population into a more free, united, and happy life, one more in accordance with human wants, and with the measureless divine benevolence, than has ever yet been brought about in the annals of mankind.

We proceed now to consider the second reason why the Union is priceless.

This reason lies in the method of the organization of this Government.

What is this plan or method?

We reply that the immense value of the Union rests also upon the incontrovertible fact (perhaps not widely suspected, but evident enough when looked for) that the system of government of these United States, the mode in which the smaller and larger communities are combined into the great whole, together with the working of all in concert, comes the nearest of any other political structure to the Creator's method of combining parts into wholes throughout the universe.

Wherever we behold a specimen of the divine creative skill, whether in the mineral, vegetable, animal, or human kingdoms; whether it be a crystal, a tree, a bird, or beast, a man, or a solar system, in all these we observe one universal method of grouping, common to all conditions. This method is that of grouping parts around centres, and several of such groups around larger centres, upward and onward indefinitely; while in living beings, according to their complexity, each individual part, and each individual group of parts with its centre, is left free to move within its own sphere, yet at the same time is harmonized with the movements of its neighbors through the medium of the common centre.

Every such work of the Creator is an E pluribus unum, a one out of many—a unit composed of many diversified parts, exhibiting a marvellous unity, with an equally wonderful variety. Look at yonder tree, examine its parts, leaves, twigs, branches, trunk, all endowed with a common life. Yet each little individual leaf lives and moves freely upon its centre or twig, which is a common centre for many leaves. Many little twigs in their turn, each free to move by itself within a certain limit, are ranged along their common centre, a branch. Many branches cluster around a large one, and all the largest branches in their turn cluster around the common trunk, or great centre supporting the whole fabric. Each leaf and twig and branch contributes its share to the life of the whole tree, and is in turn supported by the general life and circulating sap.

All this is repeated with far greater fulness and complexity in the living animal, or in the human body. How numerous are the parts composing a single organ! How many organs go to one system, how many systems, bony, muscular, fibrous, circulatory, nervous, combine to make up the entire body! Then again, all the members of the body move, within a certain limit, in perfect independence of all the rest. The finger can move without the hand, the hand can move without the arm, the forearm without the upper arm, the entire arm without any other limb; and yet all the parts of one limb, and all the limbs together, are harmonized in action by the central brain.

So also in the solar system. The moons move around the planets; the planets around the sun; our group of suns around their magnetic axis, the milky way; yet each of these heavenly bodies rolls freely in its own orbit. In all these instances we have the great problem solved, of reconciling liberty with order, liberty of the individual parts with perfect order in the whole.

As far then as human governments imitate this divine method of organization seen in created objects, so far do they solve this problem in the sphere of political arrangements, making due allowance of course for the disturbing influence acting in man's own mental constitution, by reason of his fall from the innocence and holiness in which he was created. It is just because this divine and universal method has been unconsciously followed by the good and wise and immortal framers of the national Constitution, and also because the morality and intelligence of the people were adapted to this wise political structure, that the American nation has prospered as it has, and become the envy of the world.

Is it asked in what consists this resemblance? We reply that it is in the grouping of

Individuals into townships;

Of the townships into counties;

Of the counties into States;

Of the States into the national Union, with a central government.

The township acts in township affairs through its officers, who collectively compose its centre, and harmonize the actions of all the individuals of the township in all matters which concern that individual township. Through their officers, the people of the township act freely together within the lawful sphere of the township. The common wants of the township are attended to by the people through their officers, who compose the centre around which all township action revolves.

A number of townships, having common wants, are erected into a county. The county officers and county court form the harmonizing centre of this larger organization.

A number of counties, having common wants, are erected into a State, with a State government. This is the harmonizing centre, concentrating the efforts of as many counties, townships, and individuals as may be requisite to accomplish an object in any portion of the State, or in the whole of it. At ten days' notice by its Governor, Pennsylvania sent near one hundred thousand men into the field. Without political organization this could never have been effected. What a power is here exhibited, and yet all emanating directly from the people, without coercion of any kind, beyond respect for their own-made laws! The spectacle is truly grand.

Finally, the States altogether have common wants, which only a central, national government can supply. (Oh the deep wickedness or trebly intensified insanity of secession! Language fails to express the utter madness of the rebel leaders: the recklessness of a suicide is nothing in comparison; for here are eight millions of men intent upon their own destruction; fighting the North like fiends, because it would rescue them from themselves, and save both North and South from a common abyss of ruin!) The national government alone is strong at home and respected abroad. It alone can concentrate the energies and resources of thirty-four States, and of thirty-one millions of people, into any one or many modes of activity which the nation may judge best for its own interest. It is thus resistless. No single foreign power in the world nor any probable or possible alliance of foreign powers could hope to effect anything, with an army of three or four millions of soldiers that the entire republic could raise and keep in the field. Thus in union is our strength at home, for it gives the whole power and resources of the nation to works of common utility and necessity. Such are the maintenance of the army and navy, the building and support of forts, lighthouses, and customhouses, collection of the revenue, the keeping rivers and harbors navigable, the establishment of a general post office, and its countless ramifying branches, constructing immense public works, like the Pacific railroad, providing for extensive coast surveys, and the like. Then in a different department, harmonizing the action of States by national laws, by the Supreme Court, and by the national courts in each State, dispensing an even justice throughout the entire Union, by deciding appeals from State and county courts. Each State enjoys the benefits of these national functions, with the least possible cost to itself; and were there no national government, each State would have to provide itself with all these things, or what proportion of them it required, at a very heavy outlay of its own more limited resources, and would be obliged to double, perhaps quadruple its taxes. Each State requires the means of its own defence; and as they would all be independent sovereignties, each would be compelled, like the European nations, to keep its own standing army, and watch its neighbors closely, and be ready to bristle up on the least sign of aggression on their part. The soldiers of each standing army would be, as in Europe, so much power withdrawn from productive industry, kept in idleness, and supported by those who were left free to labor. Each State requires a postal system; those on the seaboard require tariffs, a navy, etc., and in the absence of a national government we can hardly form an idea of the endless disputes that would ensue from these and a thousand other sources. For this reason the old federation of the States was an experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient coöperation, and peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted, it managed to hold the States together; but when peace was restored the evils of the league were so glaring, and the dangers in the future so imminent, that the good sense of the people saved the young nation in time, by sheltering it under that broad, strong roof, the present national Constitution. Thus the individual States legislate and act for themselves in all that concerns themselves alone. But in that which concerns themselves in connection and in common with other States, and where, if each State were absolutely independent, such State action would come into conflict with the wants or rights of other States, and also be a great cost to the single State—all such common and general matters are accomplished with uniformity and harmony by all the States collectively through the general or central government.

But further.—This central government itself, like the nation which it serves, is a compound body; a unit composed of parts, each of which in its own sphere is independent, yet beyond that sphere is limited by the functions of the other parts. This government is a triple compound, and consists of the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments.

The legislative, or Congress, declares the will of the nation.

The judicial or judging department decides and declares the proper ways and means, the how, the when, the persons and conditions, according to which this national will is to be carried out, and—the executive department is the arm and hand that does the carrying out; that performs by its proclamations and by its civil and military agents, what the Congress and judicial departments have willed and constitutionally decided shall be done.

Thus is perceived a beautiful analogy between these three departments acting separately and yet in concert—and the will, the intellect, and the bodily powers of the individual man. A man's will is very different and distinct from his intellect or reasoning faculty; and both will and intellect are widely distinct from the bodily powers. Not only are these three distinct and totally different elements in man's nature, but only in the degree that they remain distinct, and that they are duly balanced against each other, and that they all act in concert—only in this degree is the life of the individual self-poised, harmonious, and free.

And precisely the same is true of these three functions of government. It is essential to a free republican state that these functions should remain distinct, and administered by different bodies. When they are all merged into each other, and rested in a single individual or a single body of individuals, the government is then a despotism. The very essence of what we understand by despotism, is this massing, this fusing together of elements that can properly and justly live and act only when each is at liberty, in freedom to be itself, in order that it may perform its own, its peculiar and appropriate function, in harmonious connection with others performing theirs. Despotism is the binding, compressing, suffocating of individual life; first of the three functions of government, which should always be kept separate, and next, as a natural and inevitable consequence, of those who come under that solidified administration. The nation governed by a despotism must be moulded after the same pattern; it must necessarily have the variety and freedom of its many constituent parts destroyed, and be massed and melted together into a homogeneous and indiscriminate whole; only permeated in all directions by the channels conveying the will of the despotic head.

Thus the province of free government is not to be conceived of as that of restraining, repressing, punishing. This is only its negative function. Its positive office is the very opposite, and is truly a most exalted one. And this is, to remove every barrier to the freest outflow of human energies. It is to give an open field and the widest scope for the play of every human faculty consistent with right. Government does this, by establishing order among multitudes teeming with life and activity—each seeking, in his own way, the broadest vent for his God-given energies. These human energies are given to men for the very purpose that they may flow forth in a thousand modes of activity and industry, and that, thus, men may mutually impart an exalted happiness upon each other. These energies are to be repressed only when they are wrong, when they take a wrong direction, when they conflict with the welfare of the community. When these energies, these human impulses to act, are right, when they aim at useful results, then they must have every facility, every possible channel opened to their outflow. And the very first and most essential condition of this free outflow of life among multitudes is, that there be order among them—that there be some system, some methodical arrangement whereby concert and unity of action may be effected among this diversified life. Without this order —without systems or common methods of action in the thousand affairs which concern every community, it is evident that there must be disorder, confusion, and clashing. The activity of each individual, and of each class of individuals, will come into collision, and be repressed by the like activity of others. It is utterly impossible, in a community where there is no order, no mutually understood arrangement of relations, duties, and pursuits; in other words, where there is no government; it is impossible, under such conditions, for individuals, if even of the best intentions, to live and do as they wish. For many wills must come into conflict, unless they can be harmonized, unless they have a mutual understanding and consent among each other that there shall be common and well-defined methods of procedure, under the countless circumstances in which men must act together, or not act at all.

Now, it is the true function of government to establish, these common or general modes of procedure, termed laws, among masses, and to punish departures from them. Government is thus the great social harmonizer of these otherwise necessarily conflicting and mutually interfering human energies.

Government coördinates, harmonizes, concentrates the efforts of multitudes. It does this by establishing and maintaining order, an orderly arrangement of human activities—arrangements, methods of procedure, which are adapted to the wants of the community, and into which men's activities flow freely and spontaneously, and without compulsion (except in the case of violators of law), because of their adaptation to the public wants.

But now, what constitutes order? What is its essential nature?

The answer is, that order is the harmonious relation of parts in a whole; and parts can have no orderly, that is, symmetrical and harmonious, relation to each other, except through their relation to a common centre.

Order is the subordination of things, of things lower to something that is higher; and subordination is the ordination or ordering of parts under something that is above—something to which the rest must conform, that is, must form themselves or be formed with it, in harmony with it, if order is to result.

This something is thus, of course, that which is central—the chief element in the group; that which is the most prominent feature, and which gives character to all subordinate parts.

It is thus clearly evident that the very essence of government, of order, of harmony, of subordination, is the grouping of individual parts around centres; of these compound units as larger individuals, around some higher centre again, and so on, until a limit is prescribed by the very nature of the thing thus organized into an ascending series of compounds.

This method of grouping and organizing parts into wholes, is, as we have already seen, the divine method; and, of course, being such, as has also been said, it is seen in every created object—in minerals, plants, animals, and in the systems of suns and planets.

It is the method of man's bodily organization, and much more, if possible, is it the method of his mental organization. Man's mind consists of powers of affection and thought. His affections, loves, desires, or whatever they may be termed, all group themselves around some leading motive, some ruling passion, which is central for a part or the whole of a lifetime. All minor motives and ends of action are subordinate, and only subservient as a means to satisfy the central, dominant passion. They revolve around it, like satellites around their primary, or like planets around their sun.

His thoughts, likewise—the method of his intellectual operations, obey the same law. In every subject which he investigates, he marshals a multitude of facts around central principles or conclusions. He shuts them up under a general, chief, leading fact or law. A number of conclusions, again, are marshalled around one still more general and comprehensive, and thus he mounts up into the highest and most universal principles. All the knowledge stored away in his mind is thus organized, almost without his consciousness, into groups of lower and higher facts and details, ranged under or around their central principles.

The closer and more symmetrical is this grouping of particulars and generals in the intellect, or, rather, the greater the power thus to arrange them, the more logical and compactly reasoning is that mind. The looser and less connected is this grouping, the less logical is the mind; and when the proper connection fails to be made between particulars and generals, between facts and their principles, or between parts and their centre, then the mind is in an idiotic or insane condition.

Now, man's mental movements, being thus themselves obedient to this great order-evolving method, then, of course, when he applies his faculties to investigate the objects and phenomena of the outer world, he classifies, arranges, and disposes them strictly after the same method, because he cannot help doing so. The naturalist studies minerals, plants, animals—and each kingdom, at his bidding, marshals itself into order before him. Each resolves its otherwise confused hosts into groups and series of groups, each with its own centre and leading type. The animal kingdom has its sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, families, and species. Botanists speak of divisions, classes, orders, genera, and species, &c., species being the first assemblage of individuals.

It is, therefore, seen that, by the very necessity of the case, when men themselves are to be massed into communities and nations, they come inevitably under the same universal method of organization. Whether the government be free, or whether it be despotic, it must, in either case, be organized, and organized according to this universal method. It must consist of parts with their centres, compounded into wholes, and of these compound units formed into still larger ones; until the entire nation, as a grand whole, revolves upon a central pivot, or national government.

But here there presents itself a vast distinction between despotic and free governments—a distinction which arises out of the different relations sustained, in these respective modes of administration, between the government and the people—between the centre and the subordinate parts. What is this difference?

If we look around through nature, we shall find that all organized beings, that is, beings composed of different parts or organs, all aiding, in their several ways, to the performance of a common function, or a number of harmonized functions—in such an organized structure, whether it be a plant, an animal, the human body, or even the globe itself, we shall find two reciprocal movements—one from the centre, outward, and another from without, inward, or toward the centre; and further, that the integrity of the life of the individual depends upon the harmonious relation or balance between these two opposite movements.

The individual man, for instance, is a centre of active energies that are ever radiating from himself toward men and things around him; and he receives from them, in return, countless impressions and various materials for supporting his own life. What is thus true of the man himself, is also true of the organs and systems of organs of which his body is composed. The nervous system exhibits nerves with double strands; one set (the motor fibres) conveying nervous force from the centre as motor power to the limbs; the other, conveying sensations to the centre, from without.

The heart, again, the centre of the circulating system, sends forth its crimson tide to the farthest circumference, and receives it back as venous blood—to send it forth afresh when purified in the lungs.

The plant has its ascending and descending sap; it drinks in the air and sunshine, and gives these forth again in fragrance and fruit. The very globe receives its life from the sun—and radiates back, forces into space.

Human governments—human political and social organizations, are no exceptions to this general law. Every government, even the most despotic, while it rules a nation with a rod of iron, depends for its life upon the people whom it oppresses. While the central head radiates its despotic will through its pliant subordinates, down through all ranks and classes of the community, it receives from them the means of its own preservation.

A free government likewise radiates authority from the central head, and also depends for its life on the people whom it governs. What is the point of difference between them?

It is simply this:

There are two elements of power in a nation.

One is moral, viz., the free-will and consent of the people.

The other is physical, viz., military service, and revenue from taxation.

The free consent of the people is the soul of the national strength.

The treasure and the armies which they furnish, constitute the body.

For the highest efficiency, soul and body must act as one, whether in the individual or in the collective man. They must not be separated. Hence the perfect right of men who would be free to refuse to be taxed by government without being represented—without having a voice in its management. The material support must not be given without the moral—that is one form of slavery.

But of these two elements of national strength, a despotism, a government of force, possesses and commands only the physical or material, viz., military service and revenue. It controls only the body of the national powers. Not resting upon the broad basis of the free choice and consent of the people, it is like a master who can force the body of another to do his bidding, while the spirit is in concealed rebellion. Such a government, in proportion as it severs this national soul from the body, is weak through constant liability to overthrow, from any chance failure of its material props.

A free government, on the other hand, possesses both the elements of strength. It rests upon the free will and affection of the people, as well as upon the abundant material support which they must ever yield to a government of their own creation, and which exists solely for their own use and benefit. Such a government is capable and strong in exact proportion to the virtue and intelligence of the masses from whom it emanates.

Thus it is seen that a despotism differs from a free government as to the reciprocal action that takes place between the people and the government. In a despotism, all authority flows only in one direction, viz., from the central head down to the different ranks of subordinate officers, and through these numerous channels it reaches all classes of the people. But there is no returning stream of authority from the people to the government, from the parts to the centre. The only return flow is that of military service and revenue.

But a free government returns to the people all that it receives from them. From the masses there converges, through a thousand channels, to the central government, both the elements of national strength, viz., authority to act, and the means of carrying out this authority, that is, money and military service—the body, of which the popular will and authority is the soul. The people declare their will that such and such individuals shall be clothed with, and represent their united power, and act for them in this representative capacity. The persons thus chosen, and who constitute the government or central head, with its subordinate agencies, declare from this central position of authority with which they have been invested by the people, that such and such things are necessary for the welfare and orderly activity of the people, and in the name, and with the coöperation of the people, they will to carry these measures out.

Thus life, energy, power, from the people, flow from all points to the government, to the centre; and from the government it flows back again to the people as order, as the force that arranges, methodizes, harmonizes, and regulates the outflow of the popular energies in all the departments of human activity. It clears the channels of national industry of all obstacles. By its legislative, judicial, and executive functions, it establishes, on the one hand, common methods of action among multitudes having common interests and aims, and thus obviates clashing and confusion; and, on the other, it punishes those who would interfere with and obstruct or destroy this order.

The government is the concentrated will and intelligence of the people, directed to the wise guidance of the national life—directed to the harmonizing of the diversified activity and industry of the nation, to the opening of all possible channels for that activity, and to the removal of everything that would obstruct and counteract the nation's utmost development and progress.

In this way, a free government exhibits, as far as human imperfection admits, the union of the two great principles, liberty and order. The people are free to think, talk, write, and act as they see fit; but since there can be no liberty, but only license, or lawlessness, without order—without beneficent methods, symmetrical forms and arrangements, in which that liberty can be enjoyed by individuals and communities, without conflicting with other individuals and communities, parts of the same free whole—therefore government is created by the people to prescribe and maintain this order, essential to this common liberty; an order which is the form, or forms, under which both individuals and communities shall act, singly or in concert, in the countless relations in which the members of the same community or nation come into contact with each other.

Now, in the United States, the chart of this orderly and symmetrical network of political arrangements for the free movement among each other of the individuals in the township, of the townships in the county, of the counties in the State, and of the States in the Union—and within the protecting lines of which political arrangements, the people are enabled to pursue their industrial avocations without mutual interference and collision, and to attend in peace and security to all the employments that tend to elevate, refine, and freely develop the individual man (for government is only and solely a means to this great end)—the chart, we say, of all these orderly arrangements, is our immortal national Constitution, together with the State constitutions that cluster around it, as their centre, axis, and support.

Through each State constitution, the national and central one sends down an iron arm, clasping them all by a firm bond to itself and to each other. And in each, the grasp of this arm is riveted and double riveted, above and below, by these two comprehensive, unmistakable articles, without which the others had else been valueless; and for which the framers of this great instrument are entitled to our lasting gratitude and admiration.

The articles are these, viz.: Art. 6th, sec. 2d: 'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme law of the land ... anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.'

And art. 4th, sec. 4th: 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion....'

The first of these admits of no separation or secession. The second preserves everywhere that form of government under which alone the fullest political freedom can be enjoyed. In fighting, then, for the Constitution, we fight for an undivided Union on the one hand, and, on the other, for a Union that guarantees to each member of it that form of government which secures the greatest liberty to those who live under it. May we not, we say again, rest in an all but certain hope that the Divine Being will see fit to preserve His own work? For such, though accomplished through human agency, we feel constrained to believe, have been this Union and its remarkable constitution.

We have regarded the Union as the culmination of a long series of endeavors, so to call them, on the part of Providence, to bring men from a social condition characterized by the multiplicity, diversity, separation, antagonism, and hostility of independent, warring, petty states, into that larger, higher form of political and social life, that shall combine in itself the three conditions of unity—variety in unity, and of the utmost liberty with order—as the soul and life of the political body. And that it has also been the aim of Providence, in the formation of this Union, to accomplish the above object on as large a scale as possible, in the present moral and intellectual condition of the race.

Can we be far wrong in such a view? Think of our republic embracing in its wide extent, one, two, three, or more hundred millions of human beings, all in political union, enjoying the largest liberty possible in the present life, as well as the ever-increasing influence and light of religion, science, and education, giving augmented power to preserve and rightly use that liberty. Extent of territory in the present age, is no bar to the union of very distant regions. When the telegraph, that modern miracle, brings the shores of the Pacific within three hours' time of the Atlantic seaboard—when railroads contract States into counties, and counties into the dimensions of an average farm, as to the time taken to traverse them—when spaces are thus brought into the closest union, it is but the counterpart and prophecy of the close moral and industrial union of the people who inhabit the spaces. When slavery, that relic of barbarism, that demon of darkness and discord, is destroyed, we can conceive of nothing that shall possess like power to sunder one section of the Union from another—of nothing that shall not be within the power of the people to settle by rational discussion or amicable arbitration. No! Slavery once destroyed, an unimagined Future dawns upon the republic. The Southern rebellion, and the utterly unavoidable civil war thence arising—as these are the two instrumentalities by which slavery will be cut clean away from the vitals of the nation, and the Union left untrammelled, to follow its great destiny—these twin events, we say, will, in after ages, be looked back upon as blessings in disguise—as the knife of the surgeon, that gives the patient a new lease of a long, prosperous, and happy life.

We have contemplated the Union, and seen something of its matchless symmetry, beauty, and indefinite capabilities, ever unfolding, to promote human welfare, through its unity with variety, its liberty with order, its freedom of action of each part in its own sphere, coëxisting with the harmonious working of all together as one grand whole—all of which arises, as was said, from the unconscious modelling (on the part of its authors) of our political structure upon the Divine and universal plan of organization in mineral, in plant, in animal, in the planetary systems, and, above all, in man himself, body and mind.

We saw that the method of this organization was the grouping of individual parts into wholes around a centre; of many such compound units around a yet higher centre, and so on, indefinitely, onward and upward. That by such an organization, individual freedom was secured to each part, within a certain limit, wide enough for all its wants, and yet perfectly subordinated to the freedom and order of all the parts collectively, revolving or acting freely around the common centre and head. We saw that in the Divine creations—in all the objects of the three kingdoms of nature, the two great principles of liberty and order were thus perfectly reconciled and harmonized (true order being only the form under which true liberty appears, or can appear); and, further, that in proportion as human affairs and institutions obey the same law, or, rather, in proportion as men individually and collectively advance in virtue and intelligence, do they unconsciously, and more or less spontaneously, come into this Divine order, both in the regulation of personal motive and conduct, and in outward political and social matters.

Hence, as has already been stated, the near approach to this method in the political organization of the United States was the result of an amount of moral and intellectual culture, first in the colonies, and afterward in the contrivers and adopters of our political framework, without which it could never have been formed; and in the degree that this mental condition is maintained and advanced yet more and more, will the citizens of the Union apply the same method of organization to the less general affairs of industrial and social life. Now, all this is not fancy; human progress in the direction indicated, can be scientifically demonstrated.