world. At the same time, the
Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and
animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the
uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital
must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such
were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were
advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a
rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing
inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of
the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New
combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human
will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that
seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these
magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened
spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or
genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the
skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry,
and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On
every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily
visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our
individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was
inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious
activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a
shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material
momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been
arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been
suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the
destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.

War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a
gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or
even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude
of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is
rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the
relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears
in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties
engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as thos