e
and political opinions are connected. They are more Americans; they
feel and act more as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the
Union is thereby better secured."[527]

Such, even at so early a date, could be seen to be the meaning of the
War of 1812 in the progress of the national history. The people, born
by war to independence, had by war again been transformed from
childhood, absorbed in the visible objects immediately surrounding it,
to youth with its dawning vision and opening enthusiasms. They issued
from the contest, battered by adversity, but through it at last fairly
possessed by the conception of a national unity, which during days of
material prosperity had struggled in vain against the predominance of
immediate interests and local prepossessions. The conflict, indeed,
was not yet over. Two generations of civic strife were still to
signalize the slow and painful growth of the love for "The Union";
that personification of national being, upon which can safely fasten
the instinct of human nature to centre devotion upon a person and a
name. But, through these years of fluctuating affections, the work of
the War of 1812 was continuously felt. Men had been forced out of
themselves. More and more of the people became more Americans; they
felt and acted more as a nation; and when the moment came that the
unity of the state was threatened from within, the passion for the
Union, conceived in 1812, and nurtured silently for years in homes and
hearts, asserted itself. The price to be paid was heavy. Again war
desolated the land; but through war the permanency of the Union was
secured. Since then, relieved from internal weakness, strong now in
the maturity of manhood, and in a common motive, the nation has taken
its place among the Powers of the earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[473] Monroe to Russell, Aug. 21, 1812. American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, vol. iii. p. 587.

[474] Ante, vol. i. p. 390.

[475] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 590.

[476] Correspondence between Russell and Castlereagh, Sept. 12-18, 1812;
and Russell to Monroe, Sept. 17. American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, vol. iii. pp. 591-595.

[477] Russell's italics.

[478] The correspondence relating to the Russian proffer of mediation is
to be found in American State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 623-627.

[479] American State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 621-622.

[480] Ibid., pp. 695-700.

[481] American State Papers, For