The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-07-08

rnN Ynree SCHOOLS OF f011txCD In the
United States.
The outlines of the momentous and terrible
contest between the North and the South,
which have been 80 sharply exposed in the
recent message Of the national Executive,
may, in q sense, be considered the In
evitable development Of that irrepressible
conflict" Of free labor against slave labor,
which was foretold, years ago, by Mr.. Seward.
Puritanic anti.siavery, an offshoot Of the bigot.
ed religious intolerance of bygone ages, is ar
rsyed in arms against the eclectic philosophy
and States rights neo-G reeian theories that have
found home, within half century, among
Southern statesmen, and a political revolution
is rapidly eliminating, which not only threat.
ems to shake the foundations of society in the
New World, but to react with fearful violence
upon the Old. Yet beneath the turbu-
lent eaervescence upon the surface Of
both sections of the country, may be discerned
profound depths of popular good sense, equally
eschewing the fanatcsm Of abolition aggres-
sion, and shrinking from the arrogant assump-
tons of wrong headed destructionists, who have
eudeavored to turn the republic topsy. turvy
with their impracticable experiments. The
overwhelming majority Of the people, every
where, are neither republicans on the one hand,
nor secessionists on the other; but belong to
the plain, practical school of material progress,
as dictated by the necessities of the nation and
of the age. There are thus three great parties
in the country instead Of two, and it requires
but a small amount of reflection to perceive,
that the one which is founded upon the interests
of the mssses, must prevail, in the end, over
both OF TIE others.
The social elements that are warning with
each other III the United States, at the present
time, have manifested themselves ID every one
of the great revolutions of the last three hun
dred years. The upheaving, in England, which
brought Charles 1. to the scaffold, was pre-.
csded by religious agitations, and free think
ing, philosophical speculations, very similar in
tendency to those that have been witnessed in
the United States, since the war of 1912. The
pame intellectual and moral phenomena have
been visible in both, and the difference in ap-
plication has been only owing to the changed
character and exigencies Of ages 60 far sepa-
philosophy conjured up In the seventeenth
century, resulted, first, in their common tri-
umph over monarchy; then, in the exclusive
ascendency Of religious fanaticism over ra-
tionalism; and, finally in the former being
swallowed up by the growing wants of the ma
ton, and by those instincts of progress that
had remained for while dormant The sub
stantial vanquished the artificial, and though
considerable epoch, marked by throes and
commissions, interviewed, the inal result was in.
evitable and had been predicted by the saces
who, in the latter days of Elizabeth, foresaw
the first risings of the tempest
The French Revolution of three quarters of a
century ago, differed from that of England, one
hundred and sixty years carrier, inasmuch az
the philosophic element, in France, buried the
remembrance of religion out of sight for seye.
raj years, and assumed the dominant attitude
that had been acquired by Puritaujsm in the
days Of Cromwell. But inadelity ceSsed to be
regarded as Al indispensable condition OF ma