The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864. Various
the attention of every reflecting man; and it behooves us, as intelligent Americans and members of a young nation of hitherto unexampled prosperity and promise, to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us.
There are changes and crises in the course and destiny of political systems. The conditions of one period of time are different from the conditions of another period. Different conditions necessitate different political systems. Feudalism did not last always; European diplomacy is only three hundred years old. If Europe, out of her peculiar situation, originated the doctrine of balance of power, thus innovating upon the past, may not we, owing to the novelty of our situation, originate a continental system which will endure to the remotest periods of time, or so long as political systems shall have place on the earth?
One empire may fall into fragments to-day; while another may not only not suffer dissolution, but really grow stronger, and appropriate, in a most legitimate manner, parts of the dismembered empire.
We must allow, not only for the difference of conditions with reference to time, but, also, for the different situations at the same time of different political structures. To assume, because nations have been ground to atoms, or have fallen to pieces of their own weight, that therefore Russia and the United States are about to go in the same way, is a species of reasoning which is hardly warranted by scientific methods. It may be that the empire of Great Britain is itself doomed to dissolution at no very distant day; but it does not follow that the United States are, therefore, liable to the same fate, now or ever. So far from this, it is possible, if not highly probable, that as the remote provinces of the British empire shall fall away, the central political system of this continent may very naturally absorb at least one of the fragments, and thereby become stronger as a Government, and more potent for good to the people of an entire world.
There are laws of dissolution, and laws of segregation and combination in the political as in the natural world. Great Britain may fall into fragments because her geographical and political conditions render her amenable to the laws of dissolution; while the United States may go on enlarging their boundaries and becoming more stable and powerful from the fact that their political status and local surroundings render them the legitimate subject of the laws of political growth and geographical enlargement. The British possessions are geographically too remote; they may not be united together by the necessary bonds of political union. The weakness of Great Britain may now be what the weakness of the Spanish empire once was. Her geography is against her. The day is gradually passing away when arbitrary power may hold distant regions in subjection to a central despotism; the day is at hand which demands that the bonds of union shall be natural and just, not arbitrary—bonds which forever assert their own inherent power to unite and grow stronger, not weaker, with the inevitable changes constantly being wrought out by the busy hand of time.
Man's social and political life depends much on the physical conditions by which he is surrounded. We have only to instance a mountain and valley population. The former is isolated and out of the way, and the people simple, uncouth, and uncultivated—contented, it is true, but, nevertheless, enjoying but little of the abundance and variety in which people of culture luxuriate. The valley population have a city, villages, rich lands, trade, and commerce; they are wealthy, cultivated, and realize far more the legitimate fruition of our entire nature.
Even missionaries, whose prejudices may be presumed to have been in favor of purely moral means, tell us that that heathen can only be permanently Christianized through changes in their physical conditions which commerce alone can bring about.
Physical conditions affect the destiny of nations, and go far to determine the extent and character of political organizations. It makes a great difference whether a country has or has not the means of ready communication and transportation from one section to another. While the great body of Europe was comparatively uncultivated, with only the natural channels of commerce, and these unimproved, there could be little communication between the different sections of country; and Europe had no political or social unity. The people of the entire continent were in a fragmentary and disorganized mass, comparatively isolated, and independent of each other. The jurisdictions of the great barons and of the cities became at length united into kingdoms. The increase of commerce brought these kingdoms into relations with each other, and diplomacy grew out of national necessities. As the countries improved and the facilities and occasions for intercommunication and commerce increased, the principle of political unity must needs comprehend a wider range. At first, it took in only the component parts of kingdoms, and then the kingdoms in the form of great national leagues of more or less permanence. This form of political unity may be very imperfect, but it is nevertheless unity consummated in the best possible manner which the system of separate thrones would permit. Changes in the conditions and relations of peoples render changes in their political forms an absolute necessity. The facilities for education, intercommunication, travel, and commerce, are the great unitizers of peoples and nations.
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