Sixth—Nothing can be added to what was; nothing taken away from what is.
Seventh—All the diversities in nature are the legitimate effect of the power of God, operating through and upon different elements, and different proportions of different elements, contained in nature, the diversity being infinite, because the material and producing power are infinite.
Eighth—Man, collectively, being the representative of all the material and spiritual elements, the individual diversities observed in him are the legitimate result of the different relative proportions of these elements contained in his organization.
Ninth—The present is the result of spiritual principles acting upon and through the material elements during the eternal past.
Giving a comprehensive glance at the world it will be seen that government of some kind is everywhere established, which purports to rule the people embraced within certain geographical boundaries. An analysis of each form, from the crudest and most barbarous up through all the modifications of civilized government, will discover that each government was a true exponent of the character of the people by or over whom it was established. Every country, as it advances in intellectual and moral development, demands modifications in its government adapted to the improved capacity of the people. Hence, as the character of the governed progresses, so must that of the government keep pace with that of the governed, else the power behind it will rise to its might, and sweep it away.
There is but little doubt that the government of this country is the highest form now in existence on the earth; but to show how crude and even barbarous it is, reference only has to be made to the terrible conflict it has just survived, which became inevitable and necessary as the only practical demonstration of the power of the principles upon which it purports to have been founded—that all men are born free and equal, and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This proposition was made fundamental by great and good men, the representative lights of the country at that time, standing far in advance of the general mind. Liberty and equity had burst upon their souls under the sway of tyranny and oppression, which became so odious that anything was preferable to them, to longer enduring its injustice. In this land, far removed from that where freedom could not lift its head—with a mighty ocean rolling between, they felt they had found a secure asylum from further oppression, and a land where their new-born hopes could be realized. But, unfortunately, all who came to the New World had not these hopes and anticipations; some there were who still desired the strong hand of the tyrant to sway; and, thus invoked, it reached even across the mighty deep, and sought anew to enslave these new-born sons of freedom. Submission they never thought of—resistance was their only theme; and most thoroughly did they resist; through the long conflict that ensued, carried on by them under every conceivable disadvantage, their hopes never completely died out; and at last—triumphant over the crown—freedom reigned!
It cannot be wondered at that souls rising from such a conflict as the Revolution, triumphant, should assert so broad a proposition in behalf of equality as they did at the commencement of the struggle; nor is it wonderful that the great majority of the people did not understand, or did not have a full perception of the principle for which their representatives periled their lives and fortunes and pledged their sacred honor; but principles which were but partially discerned by the Fathers of the Republic have now grown into rules of action enforced by the sanctions of fundamental law; slavery of the body is no longer possible; the verdict of the majority of the people proclaimed it “behind the age.”
The South, recognizing this fact, knew that separation from the progressive mind of the North was the only chance for the continuance of a system which furnished so many excuses for physical, mental and moral lethargy; and in their attempt to separate, they precipitated a conflict in which history repeated itself, and freedom came out triumphant; thus what sprung from the seeds of tyranny and oppression, left scattered here and there by those who made that broad declaration, have been finally uprooted, and never more can take root and flourish under the scorching blaze of freedom’s noontide sun.
That physical, mental and spiritual lethargy was the condition of the South under the system of slavery all statistics touching this point indisputably attest; and the verdict of fifty years will pronounce the abolition of their system the greatest blessing God has yet vouchsafed them; it has opened the door of progress for all things, material and spiritual, and has rescued from the barbaric chains of the past a country more favored by God, in the bestowal of natural advantages, than any other on the face of the globe.
The general love of freedom, because it is an inherent right, is one of the first evidences the soul presents that it is growing from the boundaries and control of the material, from which it sprang, into those of the spiritual toward which it tends. When this love first takes root the soul has attained that degree of development wherein the spiritual has the superior control of the individual, resulting from the predominance of the spiritual over the material.