the common
ways safe and honourable for her, unknown before; the moulding of a
conservative force, so sure, so deep, so instinctive, that it has its
seat in the very vitals of the State and there maintains as its blood
and bone the principles which the fathers handed down in institutions
containing our happiness, security, and destiny, yet maintains them as a
living present, not as a dead past; the incorporation into our body
politic of millions of half-alien people, without disturbance, and with
an assimilating power that proves the universal value of democracy as a
mode of dealing with the race, as it now is; an enthronement of reason
as the sole arbiter in a free forum where every man may plead, and have
the judgment of all men upon the cause; a rooted repugnance to use
force; an aversion to war; a public and private generosity that knows no
bounds of sect, race, or climate; a devotion to public duty that excuses
no man and least of all the best, and has constantly raised the standard
of character; a commiseration for all unfortunate peoples and warm
sympathy with them in their struggles; a love of country as
inexhaustible in sacrifice as it is unparalleled in ardour; and a will
to serve the world for the rise of man into such manhood as we have
achieved, such prosperity as earth has yielded us, and such justice as,
by the grace of heaven, is established within our borders. Is it not a
great work? and all these blessings, unconfined as the element, belong
to all our people. In the course of these results, the imperfection of
human nature and its institutions has been present; but a just
comparison of our history with that of other nations, ages, and systems,
and of our present with our past, shows that such imperfection in
society has been a diminishing element with us, and that a steady
progress has been made in methods, measures, and men. No great issue, in
a whole century, has been brought to a wrong conclusion. Our public life
has been starred with illustrious names, famous for honesty, sagacity,
and humanity, and, above all, for justice. Our Presidents in particular
have been such men as democracy should breed, and some of them such men
as humanity has seldom bred. We are a proud nation, and justly; and,
looking to the future, beholding these things multiplied million-fold
in the lives of the children of the land to be, we may well humbly own
God's bounty which has earliest fallen upon us, the first fruits of
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