CHAPTER FIVE:
Two Hundred Years of Growth Through Crisis - 4

With the entrance of the progressed Sun in the natal ninth House, the expansionistic forces and the popular movement that came to be focused in the presidency of Andrew Jackson asserted themselves, leading to war with Mexico with the progressed New Moon of 1846 in this ninth House. The second period (roughly 1846 to 1905) saw the crises resulting from a rapidly expanding nation that had either to be united, or definitely divided, by the issue of slavery. The Civil War insured that union would triumph, but the great problem posed by any war is what the victorious will do after victory and how the defeated will accept, adjust to, and even more assimilate defeat and its inner as well as outer implications. The American nation has been deeply and indeed tragically marked by what occurred after 1863. The progressed New Moon of 1876 fell in the tenth House of the U.S. chart; what it witnessed was the establishment of a nation worshipping values which had increasingly little to do with the spiritual aspect of America's destiny.
      The progressed Sun, which had crossed the Mid Heaven of the chart in 1859, reached Saturn in the winter of 1871. The midpoint between these years is 1865, the end of the Civil War; and this tells symbolically the story of the price to be paid for the strong Union which Lincoln desired even more than the abolition of slavery.(4) Every strong government in one way or another, has to pay this price — just as an individual person often pays a great price for a strong ego in terms of consciousness and spiritual values. Even today we see the process operating in a subtle form when illegal action by the government is justified in the name of "national security." One step further leads to illegal action or war to protect big business corporations deemed essential to national prosperity.
      The progressed New Moon of 1905 occurred during Theodore Roosevelt's Administration. This progressed New Moon fell in the U.S. chart's twelfth House — the House of cyclic consummation — which may mean the payment of karmic debts as well as the preparation for a new cycle. No progressed New Moon occurred in the eleventh House, which refers to ideals and friends, and if need be, to reform and reorientation of social consciousness — this may be a very symbolical fact! The progressed New Moon of 1905 occurred on the 20th degree of Scorpio, which carries a beautiful symbol of faith and courage in facing the unknown. Roosevelt certainly had this courage, and the United States began to plunge increasingly into the labyrinth of world politics and world trade. World War I revealed what was implied in this course of action. But it raised the question again: What price victory?

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4. On August 22, 1862, Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune: "As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I had not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do that, and if I would save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that." Internationalism by Irwin St. John Tucker, 1919.  Return