Thus the massing of many petty and warring tribes of barbarians into one
large nation, and under a strong despotic monarchy, without which they
could neither have been brought together nor kept together, is so much
gained for human progress.

After this has continued for a time, when certain changes, certain
ameliorations have been effected in the intellectual, social, and moral
character of the nation, from the cultivation of the arts of peace, it
is then allowed to be broken up, as the period may have arrived for the
infusion of new elements and agencies of social progress which shall
place men upon a higher plane of national existence. It falls to pieces
through its own corruption and degeneracy, or by the invasion of
stronger neighbors. It is swallowed up by the destroying force, and its
people, its institutions, its ideas, its arts and sciences, its customs,
laws, modes of life, or whatever else it may have elaborated, become
mingled with those of surrounding nations, and a new political and
social structure, formed out of the old and the new elements recombined
anew and useless matter eliminated--stands forth in history; a structure
tending still more than previous conditions to raise men in the scale of
civilization--to bring them into closer relations--to enlarge and
multiply their ideas--to quicken their moral and social impulses--to rub
off the harsh angles of a selfish, narrow-minded individualism, and, in
a word, to advance them yet more toward that degree of virtue and
intelligence which is absolutely indispensable to the union of large
masses of men into a nation, whose political system shall at once unite
the utmost freedom for each individual with the most perfect general
order also.

For the establishment of such a government we think the world has been
carried through a long educational process; for in such a government,
men will find the greatest earthly happiness, and also the greatest
facilities and inducements to live in such a way as shall secure the
happiness that lies beyond. And we think that the course of events in
history will show that such a method as that described has been pursued
by Providence, gathering men from the isolation and warfare of petty and
independent tribes, into large despotisms, where the lower, rude, and
selfish passions of wild men being held in restraint, some opportunity
is given for peaceful pursuits and the development of a higher range of
mental qualities--brea