The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 3, March, 1864

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.

A great, overgrown empire, which has been built up by arbitrary power, may fall to pieces, because it is not bound together by the ligaments which an ubiquitous commerce affords. Another, because thus interlaced and woven together, cannot be sundered. The dependence of part on part and the facilities of transportation from one section to another, render such an empire a really vital organism, which cannot be divided without destroying the whole; but since nations, as individuals, are tenacious of life, the whole cannot be destroyed, and the empire cannot be divided. There is no place for division, and none can be made. This principle, we believe, applies to our own country.

Lines for the transmission of intelligence, the highways of travel, the channels of intercommunication and commerce—these connect remote sections with each other, and, in connection with the specialization of industry, cause them to become mutually dependent, and thus form a web of unity knitting the many into one. The Mississippi River has been characterized by some one as a great original Unionist. It is so.

The channels and highways of commerce are of two kinds: natural and artificial. The natural are the seas, lakes, rivers; and these only become the means of political union according to the extent of the use which is made of them. The improvement of harbors and of rivers, and the modern revolutions in the art of navigation, have greatly increased their power to make one section necessary to another, and bind people to people. Were not steam applied to locomotion, the great rivers of North America would afford far less of promise for American unity than they now do.

Since whatever facilitates communication and transportation makes one class of people dependent on another, through the mutual exchange of social opportunity and of industrial productions, and binds them more firmly together; hence, also, the political and social values of the artificial channels of commercial intercourse. Wagon roads, canals, railroads, telegraphs, are all so many political unitizers; but the railroad, with its accompaniment, the telegraph, may be regarded as the chief of all.

Let us notice for a moment the political value of our rivers, with the improved navigation of the same, and of our railroads, in the suppression of the existing rebellion.

Had there been no navigable rivers and no railroads uniting the North and South, the chances for the local division of our country would be far greater than they are under existing circumstances. The South would have been comparatively isolated from the North, and our armies could not have reached her territory with the facility they now do. Prolonged for years, as the war must have been under such circumstances, the North would have grown weary of prosecuting it; the chances for intervention would have been greater, and the establishment of a Southern nation by no means an impossible thing.

With facilities for penetrating the country, it may be easier to reduce a dozen rebel States than one quarter of the territory if held by uncivilized Indians. We were longer subjugating the Seminole Indians than we are likely to be in putting down the rebellion. The facilities of transportation in the one case, and their absence in the other, make part of the difference. Besides, these same facilities and their accompaniments render Southern society a really vital and sensitive thing, so that a wound in some vital part, as Vicksburg or Chattanooga, is felt to the remotest ends of Secessia. It will not require extermination of all the members; a few mere such wounds, and the rebellious creature will have to yield.

The Tennessee River enabled us to drive the enemy out of Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi and Alabama. By means of the Mississippi River we have cut away a considerable limb of the 'confederacy,' and we believe it can never be restored. Nashville has become a depot of supplies for the army of the Cumberland, because of the Cumberland River and the railroad to the Ohio River.

When we advanced from Murfreesboro', on the 24th of June last, the rains fell almost incessantly, and the roads became at length really impassable. We were at Tullahoma and beyond it, on short rations. Had there been no means of transportation other than the army wagon and the common road, it is doubtful whether, under the circumstances, General Rosecrans could have held his advanced position so easily won. When some of the teams could not draw empty wagons back to Murfreesboro', it is not likely that such means of transportation would have been sufficient for the subsistence of our army in and around Tullahoma. But in less than ten days the joyful whistle of the locomotive was heard, and the army was soon abundantly supplied.

Take our present situation. Had there been no railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River, the campaign of last fall could not have been undertaken with any prospect of success. But allow that it had been undertaken, and the result of the battle of Chickamauga what it was: could our army have terminated its retreat at Chattanooga, and held this important military position? By no means: it would have recrossed the mountains, a broken, discouraged, and almost demoralized host. The trains have run almost constantly from Nashville to Stevenson and Bridgeport, and the army has been on half rations for nearly two months. If wagons could not bring supplies fifty miles, much less one hundred and fifty. And now (November 15th) that the distance for teams has, for some days, been reduced to six or seven miles, we are still very short of supplies.

Let the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad receive due credit for the part it has played in promoting the success of the campaign and 'saving the Army of the Cumberland.' Railroads and all other channels of commerce contribute most efficiently to the success of the great effort of our Government to restore the integrity of the Union: let them receive due credit, and be rightly remembered when the great conflict is ended.

These facts may serve to suggest the value of the various commercial facilities as means of political unitization. A country without the means of travel and transportation may readily separate into independent fragments whenever any arbitrary institution, as that of slavery, develops antagonism between different geographical sections; and in that case the arbitrary institution would triumph, and civilization would be thrown backward. But in a country which speaks the same language, and is checkered all over by the pathways of commercial and social intercourse—since there is no place for division except by the rupture of innumerable ligaments—the integrity of its oneness will maintain itself; and if necessary to this end, the arbitrary institution, or cause of attempted rupture, whatever It may be, will be swept out of existence.

The vindication of national unity is the great issue; the abasement of slavery a subordinate one.

Here, then, may we perceive some reasons why our labor and sacrifice for the restoration of the Union are not given in vain; that we are not struggling to sustain a structure which will be liable at any time to pass into the history of the 'fall of empires.' We have the encouragement of new conditions—of conditions which give a warrant, wherever they obtain, for the permanence of political unity. Subdue the present rebellion, reinstate the Union, multiply the facilities for social intercourse and the mutual exchange of products, especially railroads, wherever there is sufficient promise of a need; and our country, thus knit together and united, has nothing to fear from the madness of local factions. Permeate the body politic in all its members by the nerves, veins, and arteries of a vital circulation, and it becomes an organized unity which is not susceptible of division into upper or lower, right or left, except by the destruction of the entire organism.

But admitting that continental unity is to obtain some day, still the question as to whether now is or is not the time for it to assume a more distinct form, brings us by a rational necessity to a brief notice of the influence of European diplomacy and the contingency of foreign intervention.

It is very clear that the 'balance of power' system of Europe, and the continental system which this war is waged on our part to sustain, are very unlike, if not antagonistic systems. The tone, all through the war, of a large portion of the British daily press, and of much of her weightier literature; the intrigues of Napoleon and the outspeaking of his minions, together with the measures which have been clandestinely taken by persons of power and influence to advance the interests of secession, show that there are influential classes in Western Europe, allied by interest to her fragmentary political organizations, who would gladly see the United States broken to pieces under the shock of rebellion. Their sympathies have been with the rebellion all through the war; and that they have not interfered more actively than they have, is not to be attributed to their sincere love for justice and neutrality, but to their own weakness—to the complicated nature of their own diplomacy, and its critical status just now, when there is danger of bursting volcanoes in their own midst.

It is a law of history that any political system of some degree of prevalence seeks to extend itself; indeed, this is a law of all movement, whether physical, chemical, social, or political. There is a political leaven which permeates the whole mass, and brings it into the same condition. It resulted once in the general prevalence of feudalism; it afterward touched the cities of civilizing Europe, and they became independent, and leagued together for a common purpose. It operated again, and governments of organized and more orderly character came into existence all over what was once feudal Europe. The prevailing system, or that which is animated by the strongest and most active principle, necessitates whatever is unlike it to become of the same character with itself, even though it might seem like the surrender of the better for the worse. This is very aptly shown by the fact that under feudalism allodial titles were voluntarily surrendered for feudal ones. This system subordinated even the church.

The question is legitimate: Have we nothing to fear from the leaven of political fragmentarism in Europe? Is there not vitality enough in the little-monarchy and balance-of-power system of Middle and Western Europe to extend its influence into this country, contributing effectually to the overthrow of American unity; and, by the operation of this political 'induction,' making the political system of America like the political system of Europe? Or, has the time come for the more permanent inauguration of the policy of continental unity—a system of very different genius from that which prevails in the former centres of civilization? We believe that there are the most rational grounds for encouragement.

Political fragmentarism is comparatively a primitive condition. Europe has bean growing out of it for hundreds of years. The grasp of political unity has gradually taken hold of the nations, and brought them organization and order out of isolation and anarchy. Even European diplomacy is an expression of the unitizing tendency, since it seeks to bind the nations together in leagues, making them as completely a unit as may be consistent with the pride and interests of separate and distinct sovereignties. Unitization is therefore in the line of political development; it has gained strength with the march of civilization and the growth of intelligence and freedom among the people. Our struggle, therefore, would seem to be a spontaneous uprising of the people for the security of a cardinal principle—a great torrent of human movement, surging forward with the stream of political development. History is, in its deepest heart, upon the side of unity, and ours is a sure faith that victory will crown our efforts.

We are led further to hope that the time has come for unity, by the fact that the European system has not as yet felt itself strong enough to meddle in any direct manner in our affairs to the detriment of our cause.

The fact that the political system of Europe is at present so completely busied with its own complications, together with the fact that our own country is so intersected by the natural and artificial channels of commerce and general intercourse, and by the interrelation and overlapping of interests, that there is no definite line for a fracture to be found, while, at the same time, our armies can readily penetrate into the enemy's country, and advance their base of supplies by means of the great thoroughfares of trade; these are sources of encouragement, and give us good reason to believe that the time has indeed come for the ushering in of a new political era by the successful vindication of American unity.

We repeat, this is the great issue of the war. Slavery has only sprung upon us; and if slavery stands in the way of national unity and political harmony, unity and harmony can only be secured by subordinating the power of slavery.

As to the importance and full significance of the principle of political unity, it is not proposed to enter into a detailed discussion here; the theme is too vast. A few suggestions must suffice in this connection.

One of the consequences of the want of political unity is national dissensions and frequent wars, by which the resources of nations are drained, property destroyed, countries devastated, the arm of industry weakened, commerce crippled, and progress in the means of civilization generally retarded. Political unity would do away with national quarrels, so disastrous to human well-being; while the emulation of states and sections will furnish all the incentive that is necessary to urge a people on to honorable achievements.

It does not promise well for the pacific character of unity, that we have a great civil war; but wherefore? An antiquated and misplaced institution—a relic of a more primitive and barbarous form of society—has led to the development of antagonism between two local divisions of our country. The war grew out of this antagonism: destroy the cause of sectional misunderstanding, and this cause of war will never more give us trouble.

But a difficulty is suggested: Our people will never become alike, never a homogeneous people; the differences of country and climate will forever prevent this. Very good; we don't want sameness throughout the society of a great empire. This is a distinctly marked feature of primitive society. The more unlike as to industrial pursuits, the more variety in the tastes and wants of the people of different sections, the more dependent may these different sections become upon each other; and with facilities for intercourse, the more intimately do they become related. Unity develops itself through the specialization of parts and functions. This specializing process, as in the gradual formation of the vital organs in fetal development, is the very creation of unlikeness; and unity is the mutual dependence and necessary coöperation of these dissimilar organs. The more diversity the more complete the unity. It is antagonism—a very different thing—that does the mischief. It is not desirable that a people should be homogeneous; that would be a falling back into barbarous conditions. Unity demands that the people shall be heterogeneous and diversified, with heterogeneous and diversified occupations, tastes, and habits; and then, with proper facilities for mental intercommunication, travel, and transportation, they become a coöperative and coalescent people. It is coalescence we want, and not homogeneity.

If such be the conditions of unity, then surely it is not to be feared, because New England manufactures, the Middle States mine, the Western States farm, and the Southern States plant, that, therefore, they must needs be under separate and distinct governments. This very dissimilarity of soil, climate, occupation, and production enables the sections to contribute to each other's welfare, and is a condition of their unity. The heart, liver, lungs, stomach, brain, and nerves cannot dispense with each other in the vital economy; it is the very dependence of one special part upon another through the channels of circulation, that renders the superior animal organism so completely a unit. It cannot be repeated too often that it is not sameness of function, but heterogeneity of function, that unity requires. Hence, through the specialization of industries—one kind of manufactures here, and another there; mining in one locality, and farming in another; the growing of a certain product in one section, and the growing of a different product in a different section—all these, together with, the increasing facilities for correspondence and transportation, are preparing society for larger, more complete, and inevitable unity.

There need be no fear of confirmed hostility of feeling between the North and South when the war is over, should it end in the reëstablishment of the Union. Southern journalists say:

'If the North is successful in its mad scheme of conquest, we shall look upon ourselves as a subjugated people, and there never can be cordial union between the people of the two sections.'

Nonsense. With the coming of peace, there will also come a very different spirit over the dream of the entire South. The great mass of her people have been cruelly duped, and not less cruelly coerced; and once the war is over, these people will become undeceived, and at once relieved from the gyves of a remorseless conscription. There will be a violent reaction in Southern sentiment, and a storm of indignation will be hurled against the instigators of rebellion for all the torture and agony and ruin they have brought to the millions of a once happy nation. The war for the Union will yet find an altar in every Southern home; it will become as truly appreciated there as here; the Southern people will one day glory as greatly in its magnificent results. There will be no longer a few thousand aristocrats, calling themselves 'the South,' and teaching hatred to freedom and progress. This class will be shorn of power and influence, as one of the consequences of the war; and being no longer competent for good or mischief, they may, indeed, nurse their gloom, and torture their lives to the bitter end with the wail, 'We are a subjugated people.' But it will be the wail of selfishness for the sceptre which has departed forever from their hands. There is nothing to fear from these. Very soon after the Government shall have vindicated its competence and extended its jurisdiction over the rebel States, will the most influential and active of their people range themselves on the side of the 'powers that be'—such is the charm of power, the magic of interest, the welcome of peace. All the antagonism generated and cherished by slavery will have totally disappeared; and the South will soon be on the side of all freedom. There will be cordial coöperation under free labor and free trade, between her people and our people; and though diversified as to occupations, habits, and tastes, they will constitute essentially one great political brotherhood.

When slavery, the cause of the present unhappy strife, is extinguished, our country has little to fear, except, perhaps, from the Rocky Mountains, which interpose so formidable a barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific States of our great Federal Union. This mountain barrier and the great distance by water may one day afford an occasion for the encouragement of ambitious men to repeat the experiment of secession. The antidote to this possible evil is the reduction of the most formidable features of the barrier, and the shortening of the forbidding interval. Span the mountains and intervening valleys with railroads and lines of telegraph, and every wire and rail assumes the dignity of a social and political power in the bonds of an indissoluble unity.