The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863

The Continental Monthly, Vol III,
Issue VI,
by Various

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Issue VI,
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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 Devoted
to Literature and National Policy
Author: Various
Release Date: September 1, 2006 [EBook #19156]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CONTINENTAL MONTHLY ***

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THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY: DEVOTED TO LITERATURE
AND NATIONAL POLICY.
* * * * *
VOL. III.--JUNE, 1863.--No. VI.
* * * * *

THE VALUE OF THE UNION.
II.
Having taken a hasty survey, in our first number, of the value and
progress of the Union, let us now, turning our gaze to the opposite
quarter, consider the pro-slavery rebellion and its tendencies, and mark
the contrast.
* * * * *
We have seen, in glancing along the past, that while a benevolent
Providence has evidently been in the constant endeavor to lead
mankind onward and upward to a higher, more united, and happier life,
even on this earth--this divine effort has always encountered great
opposition from human selfishness and ignorance.
We have also observed, that nevertheless, through the ages-long
external discipline of incessant political revolutions and changes, and
also by the internal influences of such religious ideas as men could,
from time to time, receive, appreciate, and profit by, that through all
this they have at length been brought to that religious, political,
intellectual, social, and industrial condition which constituted the
civilization of Europe some two and a half centuries since; and which
was, taken all in all, far in advance of any previous condition.
Under these circumstances, the period was ripe for the germs of a

religious and political liberty to start into being or to be quickened into
fresh life, with a far better prospect of final development than they
could have had at an earlier epoch. Born thus anew in Europe, they
were transplanted to the shores of the new world. The results of their
comparatively unrestricted growth are seen in the establishment and
marvellous expansion of the republic.
Great, however, as these results have been, the fact is so plain that he
who runs may read, that they would have been vastly greater but for a
malignant influence which has met the elements of progress, even on
these shores. Disengaged from the opposing influences which
surrounded them in Europe--from the spirit of absolutism, of hereditary
aristocracy, of ecclesiastical despotism, from the habits, the customs,
the institutions of earlier times, more or less rigid, unyielding on that
account, and hard to change by the new forces, disengaged from these
hampering influences, and planted on the shores of America--these
elements of progress, so retarded even up to the present moment in
Europe, found themselves most unexpectedly side by side with an
outbirth of human selfishness in its pure and most undisguised form.
This was not the spirit of absolutism, or of hereditary aristocracy, nor
of ecclesiastical and priestly domination. All of these, which have so
conspicuously figured in Europe, have perhaps done more at certain
periods for the advancement of civilization, by their restraining,
educating influence, than they have done harm at others, when less
needed. All of these institutions arose naturally out of the
circumstances, the character, and wants of men, at the time, and have
been of essential service in their day. But the great antagonist which
free principles encountered on American soil; which was planted
alongside of the tree of liberty; which grew with its growth, and
strengthened with its strength; which, like a noxious parasitic vine,
wound its insidious coils around the trunk that supported it--binding its
expanding branches, rooted in its tissues, and living on its vital
fluids;--this insidious enemy was slavery--a thoroughly undisguised
manifestation of human selfishness and greed; without a single
redeeming trait--simply an unmitigated evil: a two-edged weapon,
cutting and maiming both ways, up and down--the master perhaps even
more than the slave; a huge evil committed, reacting in evil, in the

exact degree of its hugeness and momentum. Yes! this great antagonist
was slavery--an institution long thrown out of European life; a relic of
the lowest barbarism and savagism, the very antipodes of freedom, and
flourishing best only in the rudest forms of society; but now rearing its
hideous visage in the midst of principles, forms, and institutions the
most