The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863

If we would learn something of the effect of art on the soul, and understand the secrets of its power, we should go to a representation of one of Shakspeare's tragedies, and mark the attentive crowd silently contemplating the high scenes which the poet unrolls before them. Immersed in poverty and suffering as they may themselves be, we will see that at the words 'glory, honor, liberty, patriotism, love'; at the sight of the courageous struggle of the just against the unjust; at the fall of the wicked, the triumph of the innocent,—the furrowed and rugged faces glow with sympathy, all hearts proclaim the loveliness of virtue, or are unanimous in the condemnation of vice. Full of just indignation against the aggressor, of generous sympathy with the oppressed, shall the palpitating throng stay the quick throbbing of their hearts to inquire of the men of the senses if they may admire, or of the critics and schoolmen if they may approve? Their intuitions have already decided the question for them. Why do the masses always accord in their estimation of the just and unjust? why do they always agree about glory and shame, vice and virtue, courage and cowardice? why do they always find Beauty in the success of suffering virtue, the triumph of oppressed innocence, the rescue of the wronged and helpless? The answer throws its light over the whole world of art: Because God's justice, even when it condemns themselves, is one of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment they were created; because it stands pledged that whatever may be the disorder visible upon earth, it will rule in awful majesty over the final ordering of all things. The soul, urged on by an unconscious yet imperative thirst for the Absolute, having in vain tried to find its realization in a world furrowed by vanities and scared by vices, takes its flight to the clime of the ideal, to find there the growth of eternal realities. The poet builds ideal worlds in which he strives to find the absolute, adorning them with all the beauties for which the human heart pines: heroism, patriotism, devotion, love, take form and find appropriate expression; for all is wisdom, power, liberty, and harmony in the artistic realms. Art is a celestial vision which God sends to his exiled children, to give them news of the invisible world for which they were created, to soothe their sorrows, to turn their thoughts and affections to their true centre. Art is the transient realization, the momentary possession of the desires of the soul!

There is then a Beauty inaccessible to the senses, above the narrow limit of technical laws, which a simple and uncorrupted people intuitively feel and love, for which the masses reserve their most profound admiration, and which it is unquestionably the province of the true artist to manifest through whatever medium he may have chosen as his specific branch of art. The delight felt in the Beautiful arises from the fact that it manifests or suggests, in a greater or less degree, some portion of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment we were created. Is it not then time that the good and earnest men of our own broad land should cease to ignore, if not to persecute, art; should indeed reverently pause to inquire into the resources and capabilities of the mighty symbolism used and wielded by the fine arts?

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.