The American Republic | Page 6

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.

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The ancients summed up the whole of human wisdom in the maxim,
Know Thyself, and certainly there is for an individual no more
important as there is no more difficult knowledge, than knowledge of
himself, whence he comes, whither he goes, what he is, what he is for,
what he can do, what he ought to do, and what are his means of doing
it.
Nations are only individuals on a larger scale. They have a life, an
individuality, a reason, a conscience, and instincts of their own, and
have the same general laws of development and growth, and, perhaps,
of decay, as the individual man. Equally important, and no less difficult
than for the individual, is it for a nation to know itself, understand its
own existence, its own powers and faculties, rights and duties,
constitution, instincts, tendencies, and destiny. A nation has a spiritual
as well as a material, a moral as well as a physical existence, and is
subjected to internal as well as external conditions of health and virtue,
greatness and grandeur, which it must in some measure understand and
observe, or become weak and infirm, stunted in its growth, and end in
premature decay and death.
Among nations, no one has more need of full knowledge of itself than
the United States, and no one has hitherto had less. It has hardly had a
distinct consciousness of its own national existence, and has lived the
irreflective life of the child, with no severe trial, till the recent rebellion,
to throw it back on itself and compel it to reflect on its own constitution,
its own separate existence, individuality, tendencies, and end. The
defection of the slaveholding States, and the fearful struggle that has
followed for national unity and integrity, have brought it at once to a
distinct recognition of itself, and forced it to pass from thoughtless,
careless, heedless, reckless adolescence to grave and reflecting
manhood. The nation has been suddenly compelled to study itself, and
henceforth must act from reflection, understanding, science,
statesmanship, not from instinct, impulse, passion, or caprice, knowing
well what it does, and wherefore it does it. The change which four
years of civil war have wrought in the nation is great, and is sure to
give it the seriousness, the gravity, the dignity, the manliness it has
heretofore lacked.

Though the nation has been brought to a consciousness of its own
existence, it has not, even yet, attained to a full and clear understanding
of its own national constitution. Its vision is still obscured by the
floating mists of its earlier morning, and its judgment rendered
indistinct and indecisive by the wild theories and fancies of its
childhood. The national mind has been quickened, the national heart
has been opened, the national disposition prepared, but there remains
the important work of dissipating the mists that still linger, of brushing
away these wild theories and fancies, and of enabling it to form a clear
and intelligent judgment of itself, and a true and just appreciation of its
own constitution tendencies,--and destiny; or, in other words, of
enabling the nation to understand its own idea, and