Now the same is true of communities. The more elevated their character—the more that the moral and intellectual faculties predominate in a community; or the more virtuous, intelligent, and industrious—in short, the more civilized it is—the closer are the individuals of that community drawn together among themselves, and the greater also is its tendency to unite with other communities into a larger society, while it preserves, at the same time, all necessary freedom and individuality. The more civilized and humanized a nation is, the greater are the tendency and ease with which it organizes a diversified, as distinguished from a homogeneous unity; or, the greater the ease with which it establishes and maintains the integrity and freedom of the component parts, of the individuals and communities of individuals, as indispensable to the freedom and welfare of the whole national body.
Thus advancing civilization will multiply the relations of men with each other, of communities with communities, of states with states, of nations with nations; and will also organize these relations with a perfection proportioned to their multiplicity; and thus draw men ever closer in the fraternal bonds of a common humanity.
On the other hand, the more a community becomes immoral, ignorant, and indolent—the lower its aims and motive, the less it cultivates the mental powers, the fewer industries it prosecutes, and the less diversified are its productions—in proportion as it declines in all these modes, in that degree does it tend to disintegration, to separation and isolation of all its parts, and toward the establishment of many petty and independent communities; in other words, it tends to lapse into barbarism.
Such a movement is, however, against the order of Providence, and thus is an evil that corrects itself. Men are happier (other conditions being equal) in large communities than in small; and when selfishness and ambition have broken up a large state into many small and independent ones, the same principle of selfishness, still operating, keeps them in perpetual mutual jealousy and collision, until, whether they will or not, they are forced into a mass again by some strong military despot, or conquered by a superior foreign power, and quiet is for a time again restored.
From these considerations we conclude that civilization, as it advances, is but the index of the capacity of human beings to form themselves into larger and larger nationalities (perhaps ultimately to result in a federal union of all nations), each consisting of numerous parts, performing distinct functions; yet so organized harmoniously that each part shall preserve all the freedom that it requires for its utmost development and happiness, and yet depend for its own life upon the life of the entire national body.
It may also be concluded that this capacity of men so to organize is just in proportion to the development of the higher elements and faculties of the mind, the religious, moral, social, and intellectual, and the diminished influence of the lower, animal, and selfish nature.
Consequently, when in such a large and harmoniously organized nationality as the American Union, there arises a movement which, without the slightest rational or high moral cause, aims to break away from this advanced, this free and humanizing political organization; and not only to break away from the main body, but also maintains the right of the seceding portion itself to break up into independent sovereignties; then, the conclusion is forced upon every impartial mind that the spirit which animates such a disruptive movement is a spirit opposed to civilization, since it runs in precisely the opposite direction; as, instead of tending to unity, to accord, to a large organization with individual freedom, it tends to disunity, separation, the splitting up of society into many independent sovereign states, or fractions of states, certain, absolutely certain to clash and war with each other, especially with slavery as their woof and warp; and thus bring back the reign of barbarism, and the ultimate subjection of these warring little sovereignties to one or more iron despotisms.
The inevitable tendency of the rebellion, if successful, and its doctrine of secession ad libitum, is (even without slavery—how much more with it!) to hurl society to the bottom of the steep and rugged declivity up which, through the long ages, divine Providence, the guide of man, has been in the ceaseless and finally successful endeavor to raise it. The American republic is the highest level, the loftiest table land yet reached by man in his political ascent; and the forces that would drag him from thence are forces from beneath, the animal, selfish, devilish element of depraved human nature, which so long have held the race in bondage; and which, now that they see their victim slipping from their grasp, and rising beyond reach into the high region of unity, peace, and progress, are moving all the powers of darkness for one final and successful assault. Will it be successful? We cannot believe it.