Concurrently with, and greatly aiding this tendency, there has been a
gradual decay of the manly virtue that charactized our fathers. Men have
become less conscientious in the performance of their public duties, and
more regardless of private rights. A genuine manly self-respect implies
sincere respect for the rights of others, and both inevitably decay as
the fear of God dies out. When men continually act on the idea that man
is his own end, and when each one is intensely engaged in seeking his
own interest, what can result but jarring of interests, opposition,
repulsion, disregard of law in so far as it clashes with private ends,
and thus, finally, social and political disruption more or less
extensive? Thus our trouble lies deeper than slavery. Remove the canker
of slavery to-day, and yet the tendency to disruption and dissolution
would evermore go on while prevailing ideas actuated society. The
remorseless mill of selfishness would keep on grinding, grinding,
grinding toward dissolution. Look at our literature, our architecture,
our science, our political and moral theories, our social arrangements
generally, and especially our hideous, almost diabolical arrangements or
lack of arrangements for the care of the poor and the unfortunate, and
what a confused jumble they present! Having no grand animating idea, no
all-pervading principle of harmony, no universally recognized standard
for anything, we are necessarily the most anomalous, amorphous,
helter-skelter aggregation of independent and antagonistic
individualities ever gathered together since nations began to exist.
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