244

CHAPTER XII.

SECESSION 277

CHAPTER XIII.

RECONSTRUCTION 309

CHAPTER XIV.

POLITICAL TENDENCIES 348

CHAPTER XV.

DESTINY--POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS 392

PREFACE.

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