e
Union. We may evade this manifest duty of ours from indolence, or
indifference, or selfish haste; but if there is one truth truer than
another, it is that no man or nation ever neglected a duty that was not
sooner or later laid upon them in a heavier form, to be done at a
dearer rate. Neither man nor nation can find rest short of their
highest convictions.

This is something that altogether transcends any partisan politics. It
is of comparatively little consequence to us whether Congress or the
President carry the day, provided only that America triumph. That is,
after all, the real question. On which side is the future of the
country,--the future that we cannot escape if we would, but which our
action may embarrass and retard? If we had looked upon the war as a
mere trial of physical strength between two rival sections of the
country, we should have been the first to oppose it, as a wicked waste
of treasure and blood. But it was something much deeper than this, and
so the people of the North instinctively recognized it to be from the
first,--instinctively, we say, and not deliberately at first; but
before it was over, their understandings had grasped its true meaning,
as an effort of the ideal America, which was to them half a dream and
half a reality, to cast off an alien element. It was this ideal
something, not the less strongly felt because vaguely defined, that
made them eager, as only what is above sordid motives can, to sacrifice
all that they had and all that they were rather than fail in its
attainment. And it is to men not yet cooled from the white-heat of this
passionate mood that Mr. Johnson comes with his paltry offer of "my
policy," in exchange for the logical consequences of all this devotion
and this sacrifice. What is any one man's policy, and especially any
one weak man's policy, against the settled drift of a nation's
conviction, conscience, and instinct? The American people had made up
not only their minds, but their hearts, and no man who knows anything
of human nature could doubt what their decision would be. They wanted
only a sufficient obstacle to awaken them to a full consciousness of
what was at stake, and that obstacle the obstinate vanity of the
President and the blindness or resentment of his prime minister have
supplied. They are fully resolved to have the great stake they played
for and won, and that stake was the Americanization of all America,
nothing more and nothing less. Mr. John