Of the several tendencies mentioned, the humanitarian tendency,
egoistical at the South, detaching the individual from the race
and socialistic at the North, absorbing the individual in the
race, is the most dangerous. The egoistical form is checked,
sufficiently weakened by the defeat of the rebels; but the social
form believes that it has triumphed, and that individuals are
effaced in society, and the States in the Union. Against this,
more especially should public opinion and American statesmanship
be now directed, and territorial democracy and the division of
the powers of government be asserted and vigorously maintained.
The danger is that while this socialistic form of democracy is
conscious of itself, the territorial democracy has not yet
arrived, as the Germans say, at self
consciousness--selbsbewusstseyn--and operates only instinctively.
All the dominant theories and sentimentalities are against it,
and it is only Providence that can sustain it.
CHAPTER XV.
DESTINY-POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS.
It has been said in the Introduction to this essay that every
living nation receives from Providence a special work or mission
in the progress of society, to accomplish which is its destiny,
or the end for which it exists; and that the special mission of
the United States is to continue and complete in the political
order the Graeco-Roman civilization.
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