As bishop Butler suggested, nations may get mad as well as individuals, but in their wildest frenzy they usually produce works and speak words superior to any thing attained by their predecessors. The most authentic and binding record asserts that "God hath made of one blood all nations who dwell upon the face of the earth;" and the obdurate who dare not or will not believe this truth may find it verified when all their gushing veins mingle in a common retribution. The great Father never formed the limbs of his children to be chafed with fetters, nor their faculties to wither in gloom. Action that is enforced regardless of freedom, is like the relation of a brute to the fierce rider upon his back, or the tingle of a lash to the skin of a slave. For all such, the lowliest as well as the loftiest, was vouchsafed the intellectual sun which illumines every man who comes into the world. It will never descend beneath the horizon, neither can any clouds long obscure it, but augment its effulgence rather. In the accumulated heritage which each generation gathers from its precursors, nothing is accepted that has not life. For this reason, the progress of society is continual, however slow sometimes; and this progress, which comprises all the conquests made by man through the principal branches of ameliorating civilization, is in fact a succession of triumphs over ignorance, and will end not merely in the gain of a battle but in the complete success of the war.
Revolutions are the sudden explosions of slowly aggregated facts, often brought about by some particular occasion, but seldom or never premeditated by any one man, system, or party. They result from a general and spontaneous feeling that liberty is not less necessary to the moral, than to the political, perfection of a people.
Hence the prodigious shock that was given to the world, when the colossus of American independence, rending from his limbs the chains imposed by monarchical power, stood erect in the full possession of inalienable rights, and went forth to emancipate mankind. As heterogeneous metals dissolve and amalgamate anew in the white heat of a furnace, so under the burning breath of colonial eloquence all the settlements of the Atlantic coast blended in the aspirations of one spirit, and contended for civil and religious freedom as a common boon. The great hero whose name it is one of the numerous glories of the present age to bear, was the visible destiny of his day, and invincible in his genius, like the new ideas of which he was the champion.
Washington established firmly and forever that principle of representation, which is the political glory of the Teutonic race; and which was destined, under the brilliant skies of this newly discovered continent, to create and control a republican confederacy, outrunning all preceding empires, and, unlike them, not founded in the subjection of particular classes, but on the enjoyment of equal and universal rights. The structure of nature, and the conquests of truth together indicate the direction and accelerated surety with which this sublime purpose is becoming realized. All the historic lands of antiquity, massed in a huge group of continents, barely extend through similar climatic zones; while America alone traverses every clime of earth, abounds in every variety of natural phenomena, and is most profuse in all sorts of valuable productions. The plains of the Amazon and of the Mississippi, compared with those of Siberia and Sahara, show the natural contrast and indicate the divine design. God has made the southern extremities of the two hemispheres little, pointed, and barren, while they grow broader toward the north, and teem most abundantly with material and mental wealth in the west.
As we have shown in respect to the occidental advancement of other civilizing elements, it was appropriate that the first fountain of philosophic wisdom among us should be opened in the oriental metropolis of New England, and that all modifying theories for a while should thence be derived. That wise people, like their fathers, until recently seemed content with the metaphysics of the sensations, and were accustomed to assume for fundamental principles, as a primary basis, truths obtained only through the judgment, by means of the observation of external phenomena. But philosophers have happily receded from that narrow view, and are beginning to perceive that this species of insight never ascends to the supreme order of truth necessary and absolute. They are in fact only conclusions deduced from sensation, and are capable of being or not being, according as the exterior objects are presented under one aspect or another. But the generic and immutable principles of freedom, art, science, and morals, in no sense find their source in the deductions drawn from external objects and attributes; they rest entirely on those primitive and necessary ideas which form part of the soul, and originate anterior to all reflection or comparison. This more spiritual philosophy spreads luminously with expanding day, and promises to be perfected near the meridian of high noon. As communications become facile, rapid, and extensive among men, isolated causes decrease in influence and philosophic truths are rapidly fortified. Individual action is less perceived, while the masses swell and rise in importance. Opinions, like the sea, become clear and constant in proportion to their depth and free action. In no age or condition has human nature ever disinherited the faculties originally given for justice, veracity, beauty, humanity and religion; it never acts legitimately without cultivating these, by repelling the passions and obstacles opposed to their growth.
The number of original thinkers constantly increases, and it is this progress which mortifies presumption, while it justifies hope. Philosophy does not dampen literary enthusiasm, nor clip the wings of divine art, but follows in their flight, and measures both their object and powers. It is the history of this mastership in the realms of intellect which affords the light by which alone we can know and comprehend all other histories; while its generalization contains not merely the most important truths, but all that can be strictly called truth. War may sometimes be inevitable, and is not to be regarded as the greatest evil, since it conduces to that succession of ideas which ministers to the perfection of human nature. Each victorious age endures for a time, and then passes away, to give place to a mightier and a better; but humanity is superior to all epochs, outlives all, and is benefited by them. That society is already fatally sick which, instead of anticipating in the future an improved succession of the present, only fears its destruction. Under the direction of Providence, great revolutions are more and better than the mere shifting of scenery on a stage; not only do they give an electric shock to the spectators, and quicken their intellectual energies for the hour, but they also effect substantial good by creating an enduring change. But fortunately the chief battles of our age are moral rather than martial. A spiritual music prevails over the wildest tempests, crying Peace. Reason carries a white flag which she will plant on the central mountains of America, and bid it wave on free breezes as the banner and blessing of the world.
Popular education renders a people morally incapable of adopting any other than republican institutions. The qualities which belong to high culture, and which may be dangerous when confined to a few, are of unspeakable advantage when dispersed among the many. Demagogues are disarmed, when constituents are enlightened. The tendency, in every thing connected with the knowledge or interests of man in our country and age, is to derive light from every quarter, in one consistent and comprehensive scheme of thought. The literature and philosophy of the age now transpiring superabound in vast materials for progress, accumulated in all past time, and which render it probable that we are on the eve of an intellectual transition, similar to that of the seventeenth century, but on a vastly higher and broader scale. Never was there a combination of all human knowledge in a more complete and systematic form; nor has any preceding epoch been so remarkable for the manner in which it has contributed to investigate, define, and establish the principles of philosophy as a science. And it is our joy that the "finality" is not yet reached. Every to-day announces some new victory, which is the sure forerunner of a better achievement to-morrow. It was once said to the great Napoleon, "Sire, your son must be brought up with the utmost care, in order to be able to replace you." "Replace me!" he replied: "I could not replace myself; I am the child of circumstances." He felt that the power lent him was for a given purpose, up to an hour which he could neither hasten nor retard, and that when his mission was accomplished it could never be repeated. When a social transformation has become necessary, vitality abandons the superseded and transports itself into a new vehicle of progress, augmenting and fortifying that which is already a felt need, and openly demanded by the enlarged wants of a more advanced age. A higher sagacity requires then that we disregard the inferior offshoots of a past growth, and apply ourselves only to second the perfect development of that indestructible germ whose true worth is seen only in its matured fruit. To restrain the future by the past, is to mingle death with life; it is to violate all the laws of nature, and consequently to create social misery just so far as mankind are thus diverted from their legitimate career. If we transpose the order of Providence a moment, and place the highest perfection in antiquity the most remote, or allow that a greater good lies behind the present hour, all philosophical laws are instantly inverted, and we can arrive at nothing but chaos to support a supposition so absurd.
When Camillus besieged the city of Falerii, a schoolmaster offered to betray the children of the people into his hands, and secure for him the conquest of the city; and the magnanimous Roman caused the miscreant to be scourged to his dwelling by the children he sought to betray. Thank God, that is the spirit of our own Great West! Earth never bore such mighty billows of patriotic intelligence as are now bounding from the Atlantic to the Pacific shores. It is on this immense area, and with enhanced glories near the now wilder regions, that the grandest humanitary work of philosophic amelioration under heaven will be performed. The hardy pioneer, free as the air he breathes, and fervid as the flames he kindles to enlarge and render fruitful the precincts of a happy home, feels that a vast difference exists between himself and irrational creatures. The progress of a brute, purely individual and limited within fixed bounds, never extends to its species, they being immutably stationary; while the human race, like the individual, perfects itself by a continuous development. In this august privilege man has opened before him a career as vast as the duration of time, and beyond that is presented the fullness of that great end he was created to attain. Whenever human society arrives at a condition wherein it can not perfect its progress, it must dissolve, in order to renew and establish a fresh and firm foundation which no longer reposes on the past. But no dissolution between the earlier members of our confederacy is possible in the presence of the great conservative energies latent in the newer States. Their numerical preponderance is one guaranty of national perpetuity, but their superior love of untrammeled thought is the greatest and best. It is in the far West that mental heroes will arise, who, from a comprehensive analysis of history, will elaborate the thread which is needful to conduct us through the labyrinth of revolutions, systems, and schools. Borne on the wings of divine inspiration, they will hover above all the peculiarities of eras or sects, to comprise in one all harmonizing generalization, not the actual merely, but the possible also, and the manifestly designed, which embraces in one vast idea, God, man, the universe, and universal amelioration.
We have said above that time is the first great requisite in executing the high behests of humanity. Let it here be added that the intervention of civil power, or arbitrary constraint in any form, so far from expediting human improvement, will retard it indefinitely. No reform is real and enduring, save as it is the fruit of profound persuasion. It works a change, not in the relations of things, but in the conditions of intelligence. Above the ruins of obsolete civilization, then, let us elevate the sacred flambeau of immortal truth so high, that it may shine upon all eyes, and diffuse its effulgence through the mists of error everywhere, to reclaim wanderers from their deceptive paths. This noble and pacific conquest through the agency of divine philosophy, will, step by step, cause all nations to assume the places assigned them by the Creator, in the most perfect of cities, under the most perfect laws. The exalted enterprise, committed by Jehovah to those of his people who possess the richest harvest of his gifts, accumulated for our use in the instrumental salvation of our race, will gather from the extremes of vassalage and ignorance a sublime unity, at once the source and perfection of that wisest freedom which is realized in the liberty of the children of God.
Every emancipation that is reasonable, and therefore enduring, implies the previous acquisition of mental illumination and moral force sufficient to render their possessor competent to enter the society of the free. If this condition is neglected from personal considerations, and with fanatical intent, the premature enterprise will end in the destruction of its presumptuous leaders as its first victims. It is the fable of Orpheus or Prometheus unhappily realized. The general law of right is eternal and unchangeable; the particular claim to the benefit thereof must be admitted as soon as there is a capacity for its exercise. All laws, customs, and institutions which array themselves against the genius of progressive improvement are fatal to the people whose material energies they petrify, and whose spiritual aspirations they destroy. Whatever in man becomes actually stationary, begins that instant to decay, and the charnel-house presents the only recommendation such conservatism can claim. Races and nations so circumstanced speedily resemble those cities of the desert whose dusty ruins serve only as the frightful lair of vermin the most ferocious and abject. It is a great waste of cotton and sweet gums to embalm the dead on this side the globe; we had much better spend those and other like commodities in promoting the welfare of the living. It is equally useless to resist the flow of waters, the budding of trees, and the growth of plants in unfolding spring; in the name of winter to protest against the fecundity of nature, while the sun is ascending, and moist zephyrs re-open in her bosom all the sources of life.