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EVOLUTION VS. REVOLUTION, IN POLITICS.*

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men.

BY ANDREW D. WHITE, LL. D.

It is certain that the theory of an evolutionary method of some sort in the universe has taken fast hold upon thinking Especially is this the case as regards the life of man upon our planet. I shall not enter into the relation of man's structure and life to the structure and life of other animals, but simply point out the fact, in passing, that all that great array of sciences which have been brought to bear upon the history of humanity, from the earliest prehistoric times in which we can trace man by his works, show evidences of his upward evolution. You need hardly be reminded that, from the rudest stone implements of the drift, down to the time when recorded history opens with the general use of iron, we see every where the proofs of this evolution from lower to higher: evidences that man is not a "fallen being," but a risen being.

But, while a quiet evolution is easily seen in the long series of ever-improving implements, laws, policies, ideas, and institutions, a more violent process is no less evident. More and more it becomes clear that the same law of evolution extends even through national catastrophes. The old doctrine of everrecurring cycles of national birth, growth, and death,— the doctrine of national catastrophes without any effect, save possibly to point a moral or adorn a tale, has virtually disappeared; more and more it is seen in historic times, as in prehistoric, that there has been not only an evolution, quiet and gradual, but also an evolution in which not only each nationa struggle but every national catastrophe is a part.

*Biennial address before the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, delivered in the First Congregational Church, Madison, Tuesday evening, February 9, 1897.

Thinking upon the many examples which might be cited, we distinguish two uses of the word "evolution:" first, its larger use, which includes every sort of development, regular or irregular, swift or slow, spasmodic or steady; secondly, its more restricted use, which confines it to the more regular processes to growth in the main quiet, even, and peaceful. In this latter restricted sense I shall use the word "evolution" in this address; and I purpose to deal with the distinction between development by growth, in obedience to improving environment, and development by catastrophe,-between progress by evolution and progress by revolution. Thus far the progress of humanity, as regards political, social, and religious questions, seems to have been, far more largely than we could wish, by catastrophes. Among the examples of this violent progress, let us look first at some which come especially near us.

Take, first, the process by which the British colonies on this continent were finally separated from the mother country. Two ways were before those entrusted with leadership in Great Britain during the last half of the last century; the first was that indicated by Burke and Pitt; it was large, just, mild, statesmanlike. Both these men labored for the supremacy of right reason in American affairs; Burke's speech on "Conciliation with America" is probably the foremost piece of forensic reasoning in the English language, and possibly the foremost in any language. Could these men of right reason have had their way, the American colonies would have remained for many years longer attached to the mother country; the sturdy, vigorous, English and Scotch emigration, instead of being diverted into other channels, to Canada, the Pacific Islands, India, and South Africa, would have continued to enrich and strengthen the civilization of this Republic; the separation, when it did come, would have been natural and peaceful; the population of these states would thus have had a far greater proportion of that Anglo-Saxon element which would have enabled it to assimilate the masses of less promising elements which have since flooded us,—and which, if we do not act in time, may possibly be the new barbarian invasion fated to end this empire, as the old barbarian invasions ended the Roman Empire.

But cvolution by right reason was not to be: if Pitt and Burke were apostles of evolution, George III., doggedly conservative, and sundry Americans, fiercely radical, were apostles of revolution; and the revolutionary method prevailed. The result was the immediate loss of much precious Anglo-Saxon blood; for large numbers of the best and truest men and women, who were loyal to the mother country as a matter of conscience, were driven beyond our borders; still worse, the inflow of AngloSaxon blood from abroad was stopped almost completely. Though men like Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Marshall, built most nobly upon the foundations already laid, and did their best to prevent bitter. ness between the two nations becoming chronic, every thinking man will now at least suspect that the evolutionary process the peaceful development of constitutional liberty in the colonies as their controlling environment, and their gradual assumption of state and national dignity—would have saved great suffering to mankind, and probably in the long run would have pro duced a stronger republic and a sounder democracy.

Take next the French Revolution: in the time of Louis XVI., the greatest statesman that France had produced, and possibly the most unsuccessful that humanity has produced, was Turgot. He strove to develop free institutions by a natural process, and thus to avert a catastrophe. Turgot saw that the old despotism was doomed, that the new era must come; therefore it was, that he proposed a system for the general education of the people – for the gradual development of political practice, and for the gradual assumption of the duties of free men, first in the provinces, and finally in the nation at large. By vast comprehensive political measures he sought to develop an environment which should fit the people gradually and safely for the possession of their rights, and for the discharge of their duties. stood at the parting of the ways; could the nation have gone on in the path of peaceful evolution marked out by him, it is, humanly speaking, certain that constitutional liberty would have been reached within a few years, and substantial republicanism not long after. What weary years would have been avoided,— the despotism of the guillotine, of the mob, of the recruiting

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officer; twenty years of ferocious war; millions of violent deaths; billions of treasure flung into gulfs of hate or greed!

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But on the other side, against Turgot, stood the forces which made for progress by catastrophe, the ultra conservatives, like poor Marie Antoinette; the leading nobles, the leading churchmen; and hating them, but really their truest allies for evil, the ultra radicals, like Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and their like. Both sets of fanatics, conservative and radical, worked together for revolution,-conscientiously intriguing, orating, lying, murdering; creating an atmosphere and an environment, first of fanaticism, and finally of hypocrisy, in which all noble thought seemed to perish. In spite of the work of Turgot, and of all those who caught his spirit,-men like Bailly, Lafayette, Mirabeau, who exerted themselves in behalf of progress by evolution, there was progress by catastrophe; the Paris massacres, the La Vendée massacres, the Avignon massacres; the Red Terror and the White Terror, Revolutionary wars and Imperial wars; Jacobin despotism and Napoleonic despotism; the first invasion and the second invasion, the first indemnity and the second indemnity; the Bourbon reaction and the Commune, the whole line of sterile revolutions and futile tyrannies, each bringing forth new spawn of intriguers, doctrinaires, declaimers, and phrase-makers.

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That a contest between

Take next our American civil war. slavery and freedom was drawing on many years before 1861, all men see now; but various American statesmen saw it then, and they tried to avert it. Only one man presented a great statesmanlike measure: that man was Henry Clay. A son of Virginia, and worthy of descent from the great line of Virginia statesmen, he proposed to extinguish slavery gradually, naturally, by a national sacrifice not at all severe; in fact, by a steady evolution of freedom out of servitude. His plan was to begin at a certain year and to purchase those newly born into slavery, until gradually, through the extinction of the older members of the African race by death, and the enfranchisement of the younger by purchase, slavery should disappear.' It was a great, states

See Schurz's Life of Henry Clay (Boston and New York, 1887), vol. II., p. 317.

manlike plan. It might have cost twenty-five millions of dollars. Revolutionists on both sides opposed it: revolutionists in the South would have none of it, for it was contrary to their theory that slavery was a blessing, sanctioned by the Bible, and embedded in the constitution: revolutionists in the North would have none of it, because it was contrary to their theory that one man ought not to buy another. The result we all know: slavery was indeed abolished, but, instead of being abolished by a peaceful evolution involving an outlay of twenty-five millions of dollars, it was abolished by the most fearful of modern revolutions, at a cost, when all the loss is reckoned in, of ten thousand millions of dollars, and of nearly, if not quite, a million of lives, and these on the whole the noblest lives the nation, North and South, had to give. Thus had we political and social progress by catastrophe rather than by growth, progress, not by evolution, but by revolution.

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History is full of such examples: let me give one, finally, beginning further from our time, but ending nearer it. In the latter half of the last century the Empire of Germany was the very seat and center of unreason and injustice. Its political institutions were a farce, in which not one great national purpose could be properly served. Its judicial institutions were a jungle in which lurked every sort of legal beast of prey. Its social institutions were based on conventionalism: its religious institutions were enveloped in an atmosphere made up of public intolerance and private disbelief. Then arose a true man, Joseph the Second: he attempted to save the empire by appealing to right reason; by stimulating thought, and diminishing despotism; by infusing humanity into the laws, and simplicity into the administration of justice; by promoting a better education; in fact, by developing an environment sure to produce naturally and peaceably a better future. All his efforts were rejected, and he

died of a broken heart.

But the progress he sought has been accomplished by wars extending through a whole century; by the sacrifice of innumerable lives and untold treasure; by the humiliation into the dust of those who opposed the evolutionary method, indeed, by the destruction of their rights, of their privileges, of their immu

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