The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6,
No 2,
by Various

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August, 1864, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 Devoted to
Literature and National Policy
Author: Various
Release Date: February 11, 2007 [EBook #20565]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY:
VOL. VI.--AUGUST, 1864.--No. II.

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AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.
SECOND PAPER.
As a nation we are fast losing that reverence for the powers that be
which is enjoined by Holy Writ, and without which no form of
government can be lasting, no political system can take a firm hold
upon the affections of the people. The opposition press teems with
vituperation and personal abuse of those whom the people themselves
have chosen to control the public policy and administer the public
affairs. The incumbent of the Presidential chair, so far from receiving
that respect and deference to which his position entitles him, becomes
the victim of slander and vilification, from one portion of the country to
another, on the part of those who chance to differ with him in political
sentiments. Even beardless boys, taking their cue from those who,
being older, should know better, are unsparing in the use of such terms
as 'scoundrel,' 'fool,' 'tyrant,' as applied to those whom the people have
delighted to honor, either unconscious or utterly heedless of the disgust
with which their language inspires the older and more thoughtful. And

thus it has become a recognized fact that no man's reputation can
withstand the trial of a four years' term of service in the Presidential
office. While this is in a great measure the reaction from the king
worship of the Old World, it is nevertheless a blot upon our civilization,
a departure from those lofty and noble sentiments which characterize
every advanced stage of human intellect, in which the supremacy and
inviolability of the law is acknowledged, and in which the ruler is
reverenced as the representative and impersonation of the law. And as,
in such a stage, respect for the magistrate and the law mutually react
upon each other, so in the present state of affairs the tendency is, in the
course of time, to reach from the ruler to the edict which he administers,
and thus to beget a disrespect and disregard of law itself, paving the
way to that violence and mob rule which, in the present state of
humanity, must inevitably attend the establishment of the democratic
principle.
The remedy is to be found in reform in the education of our youth,
whereby the utmost respect for the law and for those by whom it is
administered shall be inculcated as the groundwork of all patriotism
and national progress, while at the same time cultivating a loftier
appreciation of the blessings of social order and harmony, and of
well-regulated liberty of thought, speech, and action, and a purer
standard of right. Yet even this will be of little avail except in
connection with the abatement, through the strong good sense of a
thinking and upright people, of that national nuisance of bitter and
unmerciful political partisanship of which we have spoken, all of
whose tendencies are to evil, and so removing from the eyes of our
youth a low, unworthy, and degrading example, which they are too
prone to follow. The child will tread, to a great degree, in the steps of
the father, and the whole course of his intellectual life be governed,
more or less, by the principles and prejudices which he is accustomed
every day to hear from the lips of a parent, who is necessarily the
teacher and, in a great measure, the moulder of his infant mind. How
careful, then, ought every parent to be of the principles which he
inculcates and the examples which he sets in his conversation,
especially when that conversation is directed to a condemnation of the
motives or the acts of the ruling powers!--lest the child be some time

inclined to enlarge upon his views, and carry his deductions farther
than he himself ever dreamed, till he shall finally be led into a