The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2
No. 5,
by Various

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No.
5,
November 1862, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone
anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You
may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862
Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Author: Various
Release Date: March 25, 2007 [EBook #20899]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY ***

Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Janet Blenkinship and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by Cornell
University Digital Collections)

THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOL. II.--NOVEMBER, 1862.--NO. V.

THE CAUSES OF THE REBELLION.
No other nation was ever convulsed by an internal struggle so
tremendous as that which now rends our own unhappy country. No
mere rebellion has ever before spread its calamitous effects so widely,
beyond the scene of its immediate horrors. Just in proportion to the
magnitude of the evils it has produced, is the enormity of the crime
involved, on one side or the other; and good men may well feel
solicitous to know where rests the burden of this awful responsibility.
The long train of preparatory events preceding the outbreak, and the
extraordinary acts by which the conspirators signalized its
commencement, point, with sufficient certainty, to the incendiaries who
produced the vast conflagration, and who appear to be responsible for
the ruin which has ensued. But it remains to inquire by what means the
great mass of inflammable materials was accumulated and made ready
to take fire at the touch; what justification there may be for the authors
of the fatal act, or what palliation of the guilt which seems to rest upon
them. The reputation of the American people, and of the free
government which is their pride and glory, must suffer in the estimation
of mankind, unless they can be fairly acquitted of all responsibility for
the civil war, which not only desolates large portions of our own
country, but seriously interferes with the prosperity of multitudinous
classes, and the stability of large industrial interests, in other lands.

Neither in the physical nor in the moral world, can the effects of any
phenomenon go beyond the nature and extent of its causes. Mighty
convulsions, like that which now shakes this continent, must have their
roots in far distant times, and must gather their nutriment of passion
and violence from a wide field of sympathetic opinion. No influence of
mere individuals, no sudden acts of government even, no temporary
causes of any nature whatsoever, are adequate to produce results so
widespread and astounding. The social forces which contend in such a
conflict, must have been 'nursing their wrath' and gathering their
strength for years, in order to exhibit the gigantic death-struggle, in
which they are now engaged.
Gen. Jackson, after having crushed the incipient rebellion of 1832,
wrote, in a private letter, recently published, that the next attempt to
overthrow the Union would be instigated by the same party, but based
upon the question of slavery.
That single-hearted patriot, in his boundless devotion to the Union,
seemed to be gifted with almost preternatural foresight; nor did he
exhibit greater sagacity in penetrating the motives and purposes of men,
than in comprehending the nature and influence of great social causes,
then in operation, and destined, as he clearly foresaw, to be wielded by
wicked men as instruments of stupendous mischief to the country. His
extraordinary prevision of the present attempt to overthrow the Union,
signalizes the evident affiliation of this rebellion with that which he so
wisely and energetically destroyed in embryo, by means of the
celebrated proclamation and force bill.
It was, however, only in the real motive and ultimate object of the
conspirators of 1832, that the attempt of South Carolina at that time
was the lineal progenitor of the rebellion of the present day. The
purpose was the same in both cases, but the means chosen at the two
epochs were altogether different. In the first attempt, the purpose was,
indeed, to break up the Union and to establish a separate confederacy;
but this was to be done upon the ground of alleged inequality and
oppression, as well as unconstitutionality, in the mode of levying duties
upon foreign importations. The attempt, however, proved to be

altogether premature. The question involved, being neither
geographical nor sectional in character, was not then, if it could ever be,
susceptible of being made the instrument of concentrating and
intensifying hostile opinion