THE
AMERICAN REPUBLIC:
ITS
CONSTITUTION TENDENCIES AND DESTINY
Orestes A. Brownson LL. D
TO THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT, THE ERUDITE, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND ELOQUENT
Historian of the United States, THIS FEEBLE ATTEMPT
TO SET FORTH THE PRINCIPLES OF
GOVERNMENT, AND TO EXPLAIN AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC,
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, IN MEMORY OF OLD FRIENDSHIP,
AND AS A
SLIGHT HOMAGE TO
GENIUS, ABILITY,
PATRIOTISM, PRIVATE WORTH,
AND PUBLIC SERVICE,
BY THE AUTHOR.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
In the volume which, with much diffidence, is here offered to the
public, I have given, as far as I have considered it worth giving, my
whole thought in a connected form on the nature, necessity, extent,
authority, origin, ground, and constitution of government, and the
unity, nationality, constitution, tendencies, and destiny of the
American Republic. Many of the points treated have been from time to
time discussed or touched upon, and many of the views have been
presented, in my previous writings; but this work is newly and
independently written from beginning to end, and is as complete on the
topics treated as I have been able to make it.
I have taken nothing bodily from my previous essays, but I have used
their thoughts as far as I have judged them sound and they came within
the scope of my present work. I have not felt myself bound to adhere
to my own past thoughts or expressions any farther than they coincide
with my present convictions, and I have written as freely and as
independently as if I had never written or published any thing before.
I have never been the slave of my own past, and truth has always been
dearer to me than my own opinions. This work is not only my latest,
but will be my last on politics or government, and must be taken as the
authentic, and the only authentic statement of my political views and
convictions, and whatever in any of my previous writings conflicts with
the principles defended in its pages, must be regarded as retracted,
and rejected.
The work now produced is based on scientific principles; but it is an
essay rather than a scientific treatise, and even good-natured critics
will, no doubt, pronounce it an article or a series of articles
designed for a review, rather than a book. It is hard to overcome the
habits of a lifetime. I have taken some pains to exchange the reviewer
for the author, but am fully conscious that I have not succeeded. My
work can lay claim to very little artistic merit. It is full of
repetitions; the same thought is frequently recurring,—the result, to
some extent, no doubt, of carelessness and the want of artistic skill;
but to a greater extent, I fear, of "malice aforethought." In
composing my work I have followed, rather than directed, the course of
my thought, and, having very little confidence in the memory or
industry of readers, I have preferred, when the completeness of the
argument required it, to repeat myself to encumbering my pages with
perpetual references to what has gone before.
That I attach some value to this work is evident from my consenting to
its publication; but how much or how little of it is really mine, I am
quite unable to say. I have, from my youth up, been reading,
observing, thinking, reflecting, talking, I had almost said writing, at
least by fits and starts, on political subjects, especially in their
connection with philosophy, theology, history, and social progress, and
have assimilated to my own mind what it would assimilate, without
keeping any notes of the sources whence the materials assimilated were
derived. I have written freely from my own mind as I find it now
formed; but how it has been so formed, or whence I have borrowed, my
readers know as well as I. All that is valuable in the thoughts set
forth, it is safe to assume has been appropriated from others. Where I
have been distinctly conscious of borrowing what has not become common
property, I have given credit, or, at least, mentioned the author's
name, with three important exceptions which I wish to note more
formally.
I am principally indebted for the view of the American nationality and
the Federal Constitution I present, to hints and suggestions furnished
by the remarkable work of John C. Hurd, Esq., on The Law of Freedom and
Bondage in the United States, a work of rare learning and profound
philosophic views. I could not have written my work without the aid
derived from its suggestions, any more than I could without Plato,
Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Suarez, Pierre Leroux, and the
Abbate Gioberti. To these two last-named authors, one a humanitarian
sophist, the other a Catholic priest, and certainly one of the
profoundest philosophical writers of this century, I am much indebted,
though I have followed the political system of neither. I have taken
from Leroux the germs of the doctrine I set forth on the solidarity of
the race, and from Gioberti the doctrine I defend in relation to the
creative act, which is, after all, simply that of the Credo and the
first verse of Genesis.
In treating the several questions which the preparation of this volume
has brought up, in their connection, and in the light of first
principles, I have changed or modified, on more than one important
point, the views I had expressed in my previous writings, especially on
the distinction between civilized and barbaric nations, the real basis
of civilization itself, and the value to the world of the Graeco-Roman
civilization. I have ranked feudalism under the head of barbarism,
rejected every species of political aristocracy, and represented the
English constitution as essentially antagonistic to the American, not
as its type. I have accepted universal suffrage in principle, and
defended American democracy, which I define to be territorial
democracy, and carefully distinguish from pure individualism on the one
hand, and from pure socialism or humanitarianism on the other.
I reject the doctrine of State sovereignty, which I held and defended
from 1828 to 1861, but still maintain that the sovereignty of the
American Republic vests in the States, though in the States
collectively, or united, not severally, and thus escape alike
consolidation and disintegration. I find, with Mr. Madison, our most
philosophic statesman, the originality of the American system in the
division of powers between a General government having sole charge of
the foreign and general, and particular or State governments having,
within their respective territories, sole charge of the particular
relations and interests of the American people; but I do not accept his
concession that this division is of conventional origin, and maintain
that it enters into the original Providential constitution of the
American state, as I have done in my Review for October, 1863, and
January and October, 1864.
I maintain, after Mr. Senator Sumner, one of the most philosophic and
accomplished living American statesmen, that "State secession is State
suicide," but modify the opinion I too hastily expressed that the
political death of a State dissolves civil society within its territory
and abrogates all rights held under it, and accept the doctrine that
the laws in force at the time of secession remain in force till
superseded or abrogated by competent authority, and also that, till the
State is revived and restored as a State in the Union, the only
authority, under the American system, competent to supersede or
abrogate them is the United States, not Congress, far less the
Executive. The error of the Government is not in recognizing the
territorial laws as surviving secession but in counting a State that
has seceded as still a State in the Union, with the right to be counted
as one of the United States in amending the Constitution. Such State
goes out of the Union, but comes under it.
I have endeavored throughout to refer my particular political views; to
their general principles, and to show that the general principles
asserted have their origin and ground in the great, universal, and
unchanging principles of the universe itself. Hence, I have labored to
show the scientific relations of political to theological principles,
the real principles of all science, as of all reality. An atheist, I
have said, may be a politician; but if there were no God, there could
be no politics. This may offend the sciolists of the age, but I must
follow science where it leads, and cannot be arrested by those who
mistake their darkness for light.
I write throughout as a Christian, because I am a Christian; as a
Catholic, because all Christian principles, nay, all real principles
are catholic, and there is nothing sectarian either in nature or
revelation. I am a Catholic by God's grace and great goodness, and
must write as I am. I could not write otherwise if I would, and would
not if I could. I have not obtruded my religion, and have referred to
it only where my argument demanded it; but I have had neither the
weakness nor the bad taste to seek to conceal or disguise it. I could
never have written my book without the knowledge I have, as a Catholic,
of Catholic theology, and my acquaintance, slight as it is, with the
great fathers and doctors of the church, the great masters of all that
is solid or permanent in modern thought, either with Catholics or
non-Catholics.
Moreover, though I write for all Americans, without distinction of sect
or party, I have had more especially in view the people of my own
religious communion. It is no discredit to a man in the United States
at the present day to be a firm, sincere, and devout Catholic. The old
sectarian prejudice may remain with a few, "whose eyes," as Emerson
says, "are in their hind-head, not in their fore-head;" but the
American people are not at heart sectarian, and the nothingarianism so
prevalent among them only marks their state of transition from
sectarian opinions to positive Catholic faith. At any rate, it can no
longer be denied that Catholics are an integral, living, and growing
element in the American population, quite too numerous, too wealthy,
and too influential to be ignored. They have played too conspicuous a
part in the late troubles of the country, and poured out too freely and
too much of their richest and noblest blood in defence of the unity of
the nation and the integrity of its domain, for that. Catholics
henceforth must be treated as standing, in all respects, on a footing
of equality with any other class of American citizens, and their views
of political science, or of any other science, be counted of equal
importance, and listened to with equal attention.
I have no fears that my book will be neglected because avowedly by a
Catholic author, and from a Catholic publishing house. They who are
not Catholics will read it, and it will enter into the current of
American literature, if it is one they must read in order to be up with
the living and growing thought of the age. If it is not a book of that
sort, it is not worth reading by any one.
Furthermore, I am ambitious, even in my old age, and I wish to exert an
influence on the future of my country, for which I have made, or,
rather, my family have made, some sacrifices, and which I tenderly
love. Now, I believe that he who can exert the most influence on our
Catholic population, especially in giving tone and direction to our
Catholic youth, will exert the most influence in forming the character
and shaping the future destiny of the American Republic. Ambition and
patriotism alike, as well as my own Catholic faith and sympathies,
induce me to address myself primarily to Catholics. I quarrel with
none of the sects; I honor virtue wherever I see it, and accept truth
wherever I find it; but, in my belief, no sect is destined to a long
life, or a permanent possession. I engage in no controversy with any
one not of my religion, for, if the positive, affirmative truth is
brought out and placed in a clear light before the public, whatever is
sectarian in any of the sects will disappear as the morning mists
before the rising sun.
I expect the most intelligent and satisfactory appreciation of my book
from the thinking and educated classes among Catholics; but I speak to
my countrymen at large. I could not personally serve my country in the
field: my habits as well as my infirmities prevented, to say nothing of
my age; but I have endeavored in this humble work to add my
contribution, small though it may be, to political science, and to
discharge, as far as I am able, my debt of loyalty and patriotism. I
would the book were more of a book, more worthy of my countrymen, and a
more weighty proof of the love I beat them, and with which I have
written it. All I can say is, that it is an honest book, a sincere
book, and contains my best thoughts on the subjects treated. If well
received, I shall be grateful; if neglected, I shall endeavor to
practise resignation, as I have so often done.
O. A. BROWNSON.
ELIZABETH, N. J., September 16, 1865.
|
