TENDENCIES OF GOVERNMENT. (continued 2)

Thus far America has been untouched, but its consideration now becomes necessary. The Old World, as has been found, must continue its evolution, until like conditions shall exist everywhere. Similar interests beget union. When the general people shall begin to realize that their common interests depend upon the interests of each individual, one system of government must follow, whether it proceed from one common centre or from several centres.

What is America? Americus Vespucius and Christopher Columbus, acting upon sound scientific principles, discovered to the inhabitants of the Old World a new country, that was to be a haven of retreat for such of them as sought greater freedom and better equality, in which individuality could expand without coming in contact and being dwarfed by personal government. In continuing to be this haven of retreat it has become the representative country of the world. To its hospitable and ever-inviting shores people of all nations and climes have come, so that in two centuries the principal country of it has grown to be a Nation of more inherent strength than any country of the Old World, and to rank among its nations as a first class Power, both feared and respected.

The United States of America, all genuine Americans believe, will become the United American States. The very name is prophetic of what shall be, while the progress made in that direction begins to give well-defined outlines of it. Beginning on the Atlantic coast an infant republic, the United States has stretched its arms westward across the Continent. The same oceans that bound the east and west 81of the Old World wash its eastern and western shores. Having gained ocean-bound limits latitudinally, which form a central basis of strength, it will expand longitudinally until it shall become an ocean-bound republic—a grand confederation of States and interests, which, while being peculiarly American, will be so far cosmopolitan as to represent the descendants of every nation of the world—we no longer say of the known world. Europe has its well-defined limits of kingdoms and states, the people of which seldom pass from one to the other to become citizens; so also has Asia, while Africa is more nearly homogeneous; but they all give up their people to America. America, besides being American, is European, Asiatic and African, while each of these is becoming American. No well-informed person doubts that the progressive greatness, of republican forms of government, is rapidly dissolving the strength and solidity of all the monarchies of the Old World; though they may affect to despise republics, and to call ours a failure, their subjects are anxiously asking, When can we successfully revolutionize? Though such a step may not be openly advocated by any, it is, nevertheless, secretly discussed, and preparatory means are being devised, in every country.

And for these reasons the United American States will be the representative country of the world. Some may argue, because the commercial power of England is so superior; because she has such numerous general possessions, the English language being the one that must become universally used, that, by virtue of these, that dignity belongs to England. The fact cited above, showing that the general disintegrating influence of the world centres and is integrated in the United States, is a sufficient answer to such an illegitimate argument—illegitimate, because it is evident to all, that the process of the diffusion of English influence throughout the world is, so far as England is concerned, one of disintegration; while that going on upon American soil is diametrically opposite, being most decidedly one of integration. If the process of integration is pursued until it culminates, and the argument is educed that disintegration must follow in America as it has in England, it may be answered that the English influence that is being diffused world-wide is peculiarly English; while, when that process shall have commenced in America, it will proceed from a centre formed by previous influx from all countries in the world, and in this sense is not a process of disintegration, but simply of reaction.

The general law of direction for population and civilization was westward until it had encircled the globe, and in their last conquest 82found a country of sufficient inherent vitality to attract all other countries toward it. Not only does the tide of influence continue to flow to America from the east, but since her power has made itself felt upon the Pacific coast, the same tide has set in from the west, and Asia pours her surplus population upon our western coast, which exemplifies one of the modifying portions of the rule of motion. For the time, therefore, though preponderant commercial importance must be accorded England, the United States thereby loses none of its general prestige as the representative country of the world.

From whatever point consideration begins, the conclusion that is inevitably reached is, that the world must, in due time, become subject to one system of government. Whether that system shall at first proceed from one common centre or from several centres, is not so presently apparent, though that such a consolidation will be ultimately reached no one can doubt, who gives proper weight to the established fact that all perfect things become universal. So it is with everything of vital interest to the general people; rapid and sufficient communication is the only limiting power that controls their diffusion. In proportion as the diffusive means increase, in number and extent, so do the interests of the people become proportionately assimilated and best systems prevail.

A striking exemplification of the benefit that would flow from the adoption of general systems in all things may be drawn from the system of international telegraphing. A universal language in this becomes of the first importance. How much more important when the general uses and benefits are considered. The adoption of a universal language would remove the greatest obstacle from the path of the general diffusion of knowledge and innumerable difficulties from methods of communication.

It should be further observed, that the same law governs in all communications between the different countries. This is a necessity, in order that the intercourse may be preserved and be at all times safe. Should it be inquired, how much of the common law of the world is similar, the answer returned would astonish all who had not given it consideration, by being so considerable a portion of the whole. Were the inquiry pressed further, to find how great modifications of common law would be required in the various nations to make a common administration possible to all, a still greater astonishment would be developed by the slight disparities that would be shown to exist.

83It has been remarked that England has possessions in very many latitudes and longitudes of the world. Over these possessions a governing control is exercised, which control foreshadows the possibility of a government that shall control every country in all latitudes and longitudes. When it is remembered that the countries of Asia are practically as near Washington as California, there can be no argument deduced from distance against a common and world-wide administration of government. The broad assertion is made, that there is no argument against universal governmental administration, but that every possible argument urges all people to prepare for it as the thing of all things to be desired by them.

It only remains for some one of the great countries of the world to arrive at, or to approximate to, a perfect system of government that shall contain the elements and principles of sufficient inherent strength, to insure to that country the power which shall control the destinies of the world. From what has been said regarding the position of the United States, it must be admitted, that nearly all the natural advantages, as well as the general order of things, are on this side of the globe. If any conclusions naturally flow from the observation of the past tendencies in the order of nature, they are that the United States is destined to be the centre of a universal government.

The tendencies of government from earliest historic time have persistently been to universal sway. The systems and forms through which this tendency has been manifested have changed from time to time, as the circumstances that created them—the environment—the sum total of the governed—have changed. These systems will continue to be modified, until this tendency shall have opened such channels for itself, as will permit free and untrammeled action; until these channels shall have encircled the world, and its utmost limits shall have been attracted within the realm of its positive flow and negative reaction, and until the commanding magnetic influence that shall proceed from its central seat of power shall reach all subjects and find in their general heart an answering response of fidelity and confidence.

In such fidelity and confidence each and all can safely and earnestly devote themselves to the best aims and wisest purposes of life—to intellectual, moral and spiritual growth. In this general and universal pursuit the millennium, so long prophesied and prayed for, can alone be gained, through which reaching, the government of heaven can alone be administered on earth.

84Government, then, will be no longer one of physical force, but of the more powerful control of wisdom, including, perhaps, modified forms of force. Caste will no longer be distinction regarding material position or possession, but in moral and spiritual position and intellectual possession. In such government and caste a true aristocracy can exist in the midst of a true democracy. All will be born free and entitled to the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in self-chosen paths, which alone is perfect equality. Perfect equality in the order of nature does not presuppose that all shall be alike, but it does presuppose that all shall be equal in the right to apply their natural or acquired talent according to the dictates of the power that governs them—the same as the flower and the tree follow their natural courses, and are equal, but not alike. As the lightning and the sunshine, the mountain and the river, the bird and the bee, the earthquake and the storm, follow their natural courses and tendencies under the government of the universal God, so shall the people follow theirs under a universal social government, when fashioned after the same general principles that obtain in the domain of nature. For

Honest nature’s voice shall give

The laws to man by which he’ll live.

It will be seen, then, that the philosophic formulæ that it has been demonstrated the evolution of matter conforms to, apply with equal force, effect and directness to the evolution of society, which is the fruit, so to speak, of the evolution of matter. The evolution of society, then, is “a continuous establishment of psychical relations within the community, in conformity to physical and psychical relations arising within the environment, during which both the community and the environment pass from a state of incoherent homogeneity to a state of coherent heterogeneity, and during which the constitutional units of the community become ever more distinctly individualized.” Thus it has been from the earliest existence of communities, and this formulæ applies to all communities, whether Assyrian or American.

The process of revolution in its ultimate effects brings about a perfect state of action and reaction in all the various productions of nature, by which they are first perfected and then destroyed. The process in society must also continue until an equilibrium shall have been attained between the governing power and the power governed. When this is reached its perpetual continuance will depend solely upon the perpetuity of that over which it acts, or upon continuous individual 85existence. Continuous existence does not belong to the kingdoms below man, but does to man, from the fact that inherent within his consciousness there is a persistent though utterly unexplainable and undefinable knowledge of continuous existence, which is forever independent of all the changeable circumstances of the purely material, and which represents in him that characteristic of Divine power exhibited everywhere in the universe which is forever beyond scrutiny and limitation.

This evidence of Divine power within the individual, then, is the distinction between man as the product of nature and all other products of nature; while the consciousness of its existence is the direct evidence to the understanding that as the Divine power is eternal, so must that within be, which partakes of it, or is made up of its essential attributes.

It becomes the duty, then, of each individual who can catch but faint glimpses of such a consummation as universal government, to point it out and to assist by all legitimate means in the dissemination of light upon it and all relevant subjects. It becomes the duty of each nation to see that its people are educated to the same ultimate perception; and specially does it become the duty of that nation which seems appointed by the Divine order of things to become the central power of all the rest to push its influence and the genius of its institutions abroad and into every nation. A mere passive acquiescence in this Divine appointment will not suffice; an active and positive acceptance of the mission, and the faithful and persistent performance of the great trust, is required.

When the people of this country shall rise to a true and competent conception of the responsibilities of the position assigned it in the order of the universe, the present system of things will undergo such rapid transformations as no revolution ever yet accomplished, and to which the destruction of the Roman empire by the barbarians can alone compare in magnitude. By that the dominion of the world was wrested from Rome; by this that shall come, it shall be restored to that country of which Rome was the Divine prophecy. Personal, sectional and national motives will be sunk in oblivion, and such governing rules of action will obtain as shall bring the world into intimate, harmonious and Divine relations, such as will know no Jew nor Christian, Mohammedan nor Pagan, but one general and acknowledged brotherhood of man, flowing from the common fatherhood of God.

86[Editorial from the New York Herald of May 27, 1870.]