in
general. But for what past? Does Mr. Choate mean our own American
past? Does he refer us to that for lessons of forbearance, submission,
and waiting for God's good time? Is the contemplation of their own
history and respect for their own traditions the lenitive he
prescribes for a people whose only history is a revolution, whose only
tradition is rebellion? To what past and to what tradition did the
Pilgrim Fathers appeal, except to that past, older than all history,
that tradition, sacred from all decay, which, derived from an
antiquity behind and beyond all the hoary generations, points the
human soul to the God from whom it derived life, and with it the
privilege of freedom and the duty of obedience? To what historical
past did Jefferson go for the preamble of the Declaration, unless to
the reveries of a half-dozen innovating enthusiasts, men of the
closet,--of that class which Mr. Choate disparages by implication,
though it has done more to shape the course of the world than any
number of statesmen, whose highest office is, commonly, to deal
prudently with the circumstances of the moment?

Mr. Choate does a great injustice to the Republican Party when he lays
this irreverence for the past to their charge. As he seems to think
that he alone has read books and studied the lessons of antiquity, he
will be pleased to learn that there are persons also in that party who
have not neglected all their opportunities in that kind. The object of
the Republicans is to bring back the policy and practice of the
Republic to some nearer agreement with the traditions of the
fathers. They also have a National Idea,--for some of them are capable
of distinguishing "a phrase from an idea," or Mr. Choate would find it
easier to convert them. They propose to create a National Sentiment,
in the only way that is possible under conditions like ours, by
clearing the way for the development of a nation which shall be, not
only in Fourth-of-July orations, but on every day in the year, and in
the mouths of all peoples, great and wise, just and brave, and whose
idea, always august and venerable, by turns lovely and terrible, shall
bind us all in a common nationality by our loyalty to what is true,
our reverence for what is good, our love for what is beautiful, and
our sense of security in what is mighty. That is the America which the
Fathers conceived, and it is that to which the children look
forward,--an America which shall displace Ireland