The Drum Beat/Number 10/Our War for Democracy
OUR WAR FOR DEMOCRACY.
BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.
The war in which we are engaged for the maintenance of our free institutions, not only gives dignity and interest to these present days, but throws back its light upon the past. For, recognizing that this war is a legacy to us from the past, the natural result and necessary issue of the errors and sins of former generations, as well as of our own, the intelligence with which we study history is quickened, and the sense of the intimate indissoluble moral relation of mankind from age to age vastly enlarged. Nor is this all. The heroic actions of men in old times revive in modern deeds. Plutarch's characters become our contemporaries. The knights of chivalry are comrades of the brave soldiers who fight for the Stars and Stripes. The Good Old Cause of the Commonwealth of England, is the Good Old Cause of our grander commonwealth. Sidney and Sir John Ellot are not mere examples to the youth of our day. We have our ruder Bayards. Milton is the defender of our liberties. The songs sung for freedom in other days inspire our hearts, and the blows struck for Justice and Right in all past war echo in the roar of our cannon, and flash in the stroke of our swords.
But our war is greatly distinguished above all the popular wars that have preceded it, in being more truly democratic. In its origin, a war for the defence of republican institutions, it has proved itself to be a war of classes—of a democracy against an aristocracy. Its course has grown more direct as the principles involved in this struggle have become more clearly apparent. A man hits hard in defence of his own rights; and the people have begun to see that this war is not for the Union alone, not to save the government alone, but to save their own most sacred rights and most valued privileges. It is a war of the people, for the people. "We, the people," founded this Republic; and We, the people, will maintain it. For the first time in the history of the world, a government was established professedly on a foundation of right. All other governments rested upon force or privilege. Ours, was to secure the liberty and equality of all. But though the foundation was thus solidly and nobly laid, the superstructure has not fully answered to the original design. Our institutions failed to correspond to our professions of principle. Our government became as if it too had rested upon force and privilege. Liberty came to mean, not the liberty of all, but of a class. Equality was interpreted as being not an inalienable right of man, but a possession of certain privileges by a portion of mankind. It was declared that there were classes of men who had no rights that other classes were bound to respect.—So far had our practice departed from our principles.
At last the time came when one or the other was to be abandoned. The South—an aristocracy—said: Abandon the old false principles, the pernicious doctrine of liberty, the pestilent notion of equality, the foolish regard for abstract rights. The few have an absolute right to govern the many. Laborers must labor for others. Money, political power, social advantages, belong to the governing class. Justice is a matter of circumstances. The North—a democracy—said: Abandon the new bad practices. Hold fast to the old principles. Men have inalienable rights to liberty, to equality. Justice is eternal, universal, immutable.
So came the war. The South, on the one hand, fighting against the Government, the Union, the people, the rights of men. The North, on the other hand, fighting to maintain and extend liberty, to make men equal, to secure honor and opportunity, and his rights, to every man. There is no half-way ground for the North. We, the people, if we would secure justice for ourselves, must secure it for all alike. We cannot fight for our own liberty, unless we fight for that of all the rest of men. We have no political rights that other men have not an equal claim to. We are finishing what our fathers began. The principles which they assorted, we believe in, and are carrying into fulfilment. "We, the people," mean as our fathers did, "to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,"—and we mean to do this more certainly than our fathers did; for while they meant by "We, the people," only a part of the people, we mean by it the whole—white and black, native and foreign,—for our institutions are then only what they are capable of becoming, and are then only secure, when under them every man is certain of liberty and of justice; and when every man shall acknowledge that every other man has rights that he is bound to respect.
We may yet have to fight long before we come to this peace; for we shall have to fight, not only the armies of the South, but its ignorance, and all its allies at the North. But the end, though distant, is in view.
Long Island Historical Society.—We are glad to learn that this Institution, through the liberal aid of its members, is receiving important additions to its collections of autographs, books, pictures, relics, etc. So fine an opportunity to aid it, and at the same time assist the noblest charity of the country, will hardly again occur.
We notice that a paper is to be read this evening, at the rooms of the Society, 16 Court street, on "Greek Life in the Fourth Century, B. C.," by A. H. Dana, Esq. Those who have not yet visited the rooms will find this a good opportunity to do so.