In April, 1861, Mr. Emerson began a course of lectures on Life and Literature at the Meionaon in Boston. He had probably prepared the lecture on Civilization in much the same form that it is printed here. But the outbreak of the Rebellion turned all thought on the crisis in the life of the Nation. Four days before this lecture was delivered he had seen the young men of Concord mustered in arms on the village green and, with the prayers of their townsfolk, march to the defence of constitutional liberty.
It seemed a fated day for Concord, the Nineteenth of April, for this was the third time in her history that her sons had been summoned for that duty on that day. The news of the attack of the Baltimore mob on the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment on that same day had also come, and again, as at Concord Bridge, a soldier from Acton was the first victim of the war. With a lapse towards barbarism threatening the country, and yet a new hope springing up with the awakening of the North, the lecture written in less stirring days had to be remodelled for the hour. Mr. Emerson named it "Civilization at a Pinch." This was, without doubt, the basis for the lecture which, with the addition of an earnest appeal to the Administration for emancipation of the slaves, was read by him before the Smithsonian Institution at Washington in January, 1862. Under the title there used, "American Civilization," it was printed in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1862. It was afterwards separated into the essay here printed, treating of the general theme, only referring to the times in the last paragraph, and the appeal for the political exigency of
