The volume, therefore, after its minor episodes,
probably divides into these two, at first sight far diverse, veins of
topic and treatment. Three points, in especial, have become very dear
to me, and all through I seek to make them again and again, in
many forms and repetitions, as will be seen: 1. That the true
growth-characteristics of the democracy of the New World are
henceforth to radiate in superior literary, artistic and religious
expressions, far more than in its republican forms, universal
suffrage, and frequent elections, (though these are unspeakably
important.) 2. That the vital political mission of the United States
is, to practically solve and settle the problem of two sets of
rights--the fusion, thorough compatibility and junction of individual
State prerogatives, with the indispensable necessity of centrality and
Oneness--the national identity power--the sovereign Union, relentless,
permanently comprising all, and over all, and in that never yielding
an inch: then 3d. Do we not, amid a general malaria of fogs and
vapors, our day, unmistakably see two pillars of promise, with
grandest, indestructible indications--one, that the morbid facts of
American politics and society everywhere are but passing incidents and
flanges of our unbounded impetus of growth? weeds, annuals, of the
rank, rich soil--not central, enduring, perennial things? The other,
that all the hitherto experience of the States, their first century,
has been but preparation, adolescence--and that this Union is only now
and henceforth, (_i.
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