Sectionalism

“ One of the principal disadvantages of the present organization of society is the sectionalism arising out of the political divisions established by national boundary lines. In a world where all of the producers were organized along lines corresponding with their occupations, sectionalism would have much less chance to play a rôle in the lives of the people. ”

“ It was natural, that, out of the new conditions, new men should arise; and, as if in response to the needs of the hour and the demands of the people, there arose a man who, with no selfish ends to serve and no selfish ambition to satisfy, was able to touch the hearts of the people of both sections, and to subdue the spirit of sectionalism that was still rampant long after the carpetbag governments in the South had been overthrown by the force of public opinion. ”

“ It is necessary next to notice that in the midst of all this national energy, and contemporaneous with the tendency to turn to the national government for protection to democracy, there is clear evidence of the persistence and the development of sectionalism. ”

“ But, from the point of view of the rise and growth of sectionalism and nationalism, it is much more important to note the existence of great social and economic areas, independent of state lines, which have acted as units in political history, and which have changed their political attitude as they changed their economic organization and divided into new groups. ”

“ Without pursuing the interesting speculation, I may note as evidence of the development of sectionalism, the various gatherings of business men, religious denominations and educational organizations in groups of States. Among the signs of growth of a healthy provincialism is the formation of sectional historical societies. While the American Historical Association has been growing vigorously and becoming a genuine gathering of historical students from all parts of the nation, there have also arisen societies in various sections to deal with the particular history of the groups of States. ”

“ Here Picton turned up his lip, and smiled out of a little battery of sarcasm: "And you think," said he, after a pause, "that these colonists would no longer revel in those little prejudices and sectionalisms so dear to every American heart, if they were transplanted to your own favored coasts? Why, sir, there is more sectionalism in the country you would transport these people to, than in any one nation I ever heard of; every one of your States is a petty principality; it has its own separate interests ”

“ We must not forget, however, that all sorts of people talked of national institutions, and that the term, until we look closely into the mind of, the person using it, signifies nothing. Because the Northern capitalist repudiated the idea of sectionalism, it does not follow that he set up any other in its place. ”

“ In these demands, it finds itself in touch with the depressed agricultural classes and the workingmen of the South and East. The Western problem is no longer a sectional problem: it is a social problem on a national scale. The greater West, extending from the Alleghanies to the Pacific, cannot be regarded as a unit; it requires analysis into regions and classes. But its area, its population, and its material resources would give force to its assertion that if there is a sectionalism in the country, the sectionalism is Eastern. ”

“ All the while never a people more eager to get together than the people of the United States after the War of Sections, as never a people so averse to getting into that war. A very small group of extremists and doctrinaires had in the beginning made a War of Sections possible. Enough of these survived in the days of Cleveland and McKinley to keep sectionalism alive. ”

“ This was shown, not only in protests against the loose-construction tendencies of Congress, and in denunciations of the decisions of the great chief-justice, but more significantly in the tendency of the separate geographical divisions of the country to follow their own interests and to make combinations with one another on this basis.
From one point of view the United States, even in this day of its youth, was more like an empire than a nation. Sectionalism had been fundamental in American history before the period which we have reached. ”

“ All American citizens should divest themselves of selfish considerations in relation to public affairs, and in the spirit of patriotism make dispassionate inquisition into the causes which have produced much alienation and bitterness among men whom the highest considerations require should be united in the bonds of fraternal fellowship. All Union-loving men should unite upon a platform of reason, equality, and patriotism. All sectionalism should be annihilated. All sections of the Union should be harmonized under a national, conservative government, as during the early days of the republic. ”

“ The Federalist party, heretofore broad-constructionists, became strict-constructionists under the temptation of factious politics, and a very notable political struggle was thus precipitated—notable among other things for strong expressions of sectionalism. ”

“ That principle is embodied in the well-established maxim, 'If a lion gets in your path, kick it." There are those who believe* that the way out of the present tangle of sectionalisms is to be found, not by turning back, but by pressing on. ”

“ Of the many misconceptions of centralization which have fallen under our observation, the following, we think, are the most prevalent and important:—1. It is confounded with over-governing. 2. It is thought incompatible with the spirit, if not with the forms, of free or popular government. 3. It is thought incompatible with local governments of local and popular origin. 4. In France, Prussia, and other continental countries, the governments of localities, with the lower branches of the general administration, are controlled to excess by the heads of the latter ”

“ I. Centralization, as it is commonly conceived, is mistaken for over-governing. A centralized government, according to the same conception, is an over-regulating, over-restraining, over-protecting government;—paternal, as its friends would call it; a pestilent busy-body, as it would be called by its enemies. We think that this is the conception which is commonly associated with the word; and our impression is confirmed by two of the books whose titles we have prefixed to this Article—De la Liberté du Travail, by Mr Dunoyer; and Notes of a Traveller, by Mr Laing. ”

“ The sectaries I have mentioned—around whom, without adopting or even understanding their principles, gradually gathered all the better elements of society, every man of intellect and spirit who had not been murdered, with a still larger proportion of women—seceded separately or in considerable numbers at once; established themselves in those parts of the planet whose less fertile soil or less genial climate had caused them to be abandoned, and there organised societies on the old principles of private ownership and the permanence of household ties. ”

“ Sectional jealousies and sectional parties inflame each other; the struggles which they cause are protracted; and the real merits of men and things are lost sight of in the passions which they arouse. ”

“ Certain it is, that greater societies, under one government, may in some cases make a secession, and divide into lesser, without sedition: or else, how would there be so many distinct commonwealths in the world? ”

“ Not only are there too many disproportions in the extent of territory, but these ancient divisions, which no political combination has determined, and only which alone can make tolerable, are vicious in many respects, both public and local. ”

“ II. The misconception which we have examined confounds centralization with over-governing. By the mistake which we shall now consider, it is deemed incompatible with the substance or spirit of what is commonly called free government.
Where the sovereign power resides in a body of persons, forming a fraction of the society, which may be deemed a large one, the government is popular or democratic; or, at least, the constitution of the government partakes largely of the popular or democratic element. ”

“ Why should we allow a sectional party to agitate this country, to array the North against the South, and convert us into enemies instead of friends merely that a few ambitious men may ride into power on a sectional hobby? ”

“ The privilege of leading the new communities through the condition of Territorial existence up to the full majesty of States, was, according to secession argument, sufficient compensation, and removed all shadow of the title or the sovereignty of the National Government, the moment the inhabitants thus benefitted announced their desire to form new connections. ”

“ Committees of the Village Poor were bodies from which were excluded all such as, by enterprise, industry, and thrift, had raised themselves to positions of independence. Composed of the lowest elements of stupid, illiterate, and idle peasants, beggars and tramps, these committees, endowed with supreme power, were authorized to seize the property of the prosperous and divide it amongst themselves, a portion going to the Government. ”

“ All civilized societies would be divided into different sects, factions, and interests, as they happened to consist of rich and poor, debtors and creditors, the landed, the manufacturing, the commercial interests, the inhabitants of this district or that district, the followers of this political leader or that political leader, the disciples of this religious sect or that religious sect. In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger. ”

“ Advancing centralization swept away these ancient customs, a centralization whose march is, perhaps, as sharply marked by the migration of vagrants to the cities, as by any single phenomenon. Vagrant paupers formed the proletariat for whose relief the “Frumentariæ Leges” were framed; and yet, though poor-laws in some form are considered a necessity in modern times, few institutions of antiquity have been more severely criticised than those regulating charity. ”

“ It is impossible not to realize how great must be the antiquity of a system which, evolving from the rudimentary, ceremonial division of a tribe into seven parts, as a consequence of its primitive observation of the Septentriones, developed into a great and complex government dominated and pervaded by the abstract conceptions of the seven-fold divisions of the Above, Below, Middle and Four Quarters. ”

“ Some people confuse the terms and ideas, concentration and centralization. Proper concentration in complete units by an earlier convergence of authority permits decentralization in administration. A lack of such early concentration makes centralization inevitable. ”

“ The social separation reflected in the spectacle is inseparable from the modern state — the product of the social division of labor that is both the chief instrument of class rule and the concentrated expression of all social divisions. ”

“ Division teaches how to divide a number into two or more equal parts, as in the division of prize-money.
[39] Division is of great importance, whether political, ecclesiastical, commercial, civil, or social. Nothing is more likely to destroy your opponents than a split. Divide et impera is the true Machiavelian policy of all governments.
Numbers, that is the multitude, are to be divided, in a variety of ways,—by mob orators, or by mob-sneaks, or by parliamentary flounderers, or by mystifying pulpit demagogues. ”

“ To compare together the three bases, not on their political reason, but on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its consistency with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the principle which the committee call the basis of population does not begin to operate from the same point with the two other principles, called the bases of territory and of contribution, which are both of an aristocratic nature. ”

“ Such a government, though of course retaining some revolutionary features, would come as near to the normal state as is at present practicable.426 For its province would be entirely limited to material questions, and the only anomaly of importance would be the fact of choosing rulers from the working classes. Normally, this class is excluded from political administration, which falls ultimately into the hands of capitalists. ”

“ A perfect definition of centralization would involve a definition of sovereignty and independent political society; but since a definition of these fundamental notions would not consist with our limited purposes, we confine ourselves to the following assumptions:—That every political society is subject to a person or persons who may be styled the sovereign: That the political powers, active or passive, of this individual or body, are not limitable by positive law ”

“ Our sciolists would persuade us that the different sects are hot-beds of sedition, because they are nurseries of public spirit, and independence, and sincerity of opinion in all other respects. They are so necessarily, and by the supposition. ”

“ Centralization succeeds more easily, indeed, in subjecting the external actions of men to a certain uniformity, which at last commands our regard, independently of the objects to which it is applied, like those devotees who worship the statue and forget the deity it represents. ”

“ Side by side with the great majority, exclusively bond slaves to labor, arises a class freed from directly productive labor, which looks after the general affairs of society.; the direction of labor, State business, law, science, art, etc. It is, therefore, the law of division of labor that lies at the basis of the division into classes. ”

“ The dividing of a kingdom into provinces or districts, which is done for the convenience of administering justice, and conducting other business of government, has a material influence over, and is in a great measure the cause of dividing men’s hearts. ”

“ For many centuries the spiritual power, according to the traditional conception of it, has been separated from the temporal power. I remark, by the way, that the political principle of the division of powers, or functions, is the same as the principle of the division of the departments of industry or of labour. ”