s on his
knavery or stupidity that the ill-wishers to American unity now chiefly
rely.

For the war has compelled these ill-wishers to modify their most
cherished theory of democracy in the United States. They thought that
the marvellous energy for military combination, developed by a democracy
suddenly emancipated from oppression, such as was presented by the
French people in the Revolution of 1789, was not the characteristic of a
democracy which had grown up under democratic institutions. The first
was anarchy _plus_ the dictator; the second was merely "anarchy _plus_
the constable." They had an obstinate prepossession, that, in a settled
democracy like ours, the selfishness of the individual was so stimulated
that he became incapable of self-sacrifice for the public good. The ease
with which the government of the United States has raised men by the
million and money by the billion has overturned this theory, and shown
that a republic, of which individual liberty and general equality form
the animating principles, can still rapidly avail itself of the property
and personal service of all the individuals who compose it, and that
self-seeking is not more characteristic of a democracy in time of peace
than self-sacrifice is characteristic of the same democracy in time of
war. The overwhelming and apparently unlimited power of a government
thus _of_ the people and _for_ the people is what the war has
demonstrated, and it very naturally excites the fear and jealousy of
governments which are based on less firm foundations in the popular mind
and heart and will.

It is doubtless true that many candid foreign thinkers favor the
disintegration of the American Union because they believe that the
consolidation of its power would make it the meddlesome tyrant of the
world. They admit that the enterprise, skill, and labor of the people,
applied to the unbounded undeveloped resources of the country, will
enable them to create wealth very much faster than other nations, and
that the population, fed by continual streams of immigration, will also
increase with a corresponding rapidity. They admit, that, if kept
united, a few generations will be sufficient to make them the richest,
largest, and most powerful nation in the world. But they also fear that
this nation will be an armed and aggressive democracy, deficient in
public reason and public conscience, disposed to push unjust claims with
insolent pertinacity, and impelled by a spi