The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Great, strong, noble men--those who are great and noble in all the
elements of their nature--such are never pugilists, and never fight: it
is those of distorted and defective development--those who have not
completeness and integrality within themselves, that are turbulent and
break the peace.
Another value of comprehensive unity is that only in great cooeperative
combinations of mankind can the _individual man_ find the fullest
expression for all the faculties of his nature. There is no unity
proper--no organization--in savage society; and life there is very
simple, with little variety of expression and little enjoyment. As man
becomes cultivated his wants increase, and he becomes a more social
being. His happiness becomes more and more dependent on others; hence
arise societies and organizations of various kinds. The more cultivated
any people and the more diversified their wants, the more various do
their relations become, and the more extensive their combinations. This
is given merely as a fact of history. The truly philosophic eye, we
believe, cannot be long in discerning that these larger combinations
and more comprehensive unities are only a necessary outgrowth of an
improving civilization, and indispensable to the fullest measure of
happiness; since in them only can the life of a cultured people find the
means of its best expression. The growth of unity, as revealed in
history, is not an arbitrary thing incident to a chance concurrence of
causes, but naturally growing out of the needs of a steady progress in
the education and freedom of the people.
To say that it is through great social and political institutions that
the individual finds the most ample means for the culture and
satisfaction of the faculties and wants of his nature, is but another
way of saying that it is through such institutions that he finds the
widest range for individual liberty. A very little observation of
history will show that as political unity has enlarged and political
organization become more distinctly marked, the radii of individual
freedom have at the same time swept a wider field.
Despotism curtails enterprise, and prevents the specialization of parts
and functions as the genuine condition of unity. The free play of
intelligence and interest is necessary to develop the diversity upon
which unity depends. Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to
every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a
self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to
each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand
in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at
the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing the individual in
the exercise of his legitimate rights. Unity and liberty are mutually
dependent and forever inseparable. Hence the inestimable value of unity,
the leading issue of the war.
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