Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by Cornell University Digital Collections) THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY: DEVOTED TO LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY. * * * * * VOL. III.--JUNE, 1863.--No. VI. * * * * * THE VALUE OF THE UNION. II. Having taken a hasty survey, in our first number, of the value and progress of the Union, let us now, turning our gaze to the opposite quarter, consider the pro-slavery rebellion and its tendencies, and mark the contrast. * * * * * We have seen, in glancing along the past, that while a benevolent Providence has evidently been in the constant endeavor to lead mankind onward and upward to a higher, more united, and happier life, even on this earth--this divine effort has always encountered great opposition from human selfishness and ignorance. We have also observed, that nevertheless, through the ages-long _external_ discipline of incessant political revolutions and changes, and also by the _internal_ influences of such religious ideas as men could, from time to time, receive, appreciate, and profit by, that through all this they have at length been brought to that religious, political, intellectual, social, and industrial condition which constituted the civilization of Europe some two and a half centuries since; and which was, taken all in all, far in advance of any previous condition. Under these circumstances, the period was ripe for the germs of a religious and political liberty to start into being or to be quickened into fresh life, with a far better prospect of final development than they could have had at an earlier epoch. Born thus anew in Europe, they were transplanted to the shores of the new world. The results of their comparatively unrestricted growth are seen in the establishment and marvellous expansion of the republic.