The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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