Look at all our
ships, our mechanism, our homes, our sanctuaries, our institutions of
morality, of mercy and of religion; our wealth, intelligence, order,
power; consider the elevation given to millions in the worst form of
civilization in the land, showing that such is the vitalizing force of our
national life, that even slavery here, bad as it is--and we know of
nothing worse as a system--lifts men above the natural license of savage
existence. Consider all this, and much more, that I may not stop to utter,
and you cannot--you _do_ not--no sane mind _can_ question the supreme
excellence--I had almost said the _divine_ excellence--of our
government. And if there were need of other proof, we have only to remind
you with what promptness the call of our noble Chief Magistrate was
answered from every free State--from the city and the hamlet; from the
bank, the bar, the press and the pulpit; from the workshop and the soil;
from the calm and comfort of home and ease and affluence, and from the
cottage of the poor, as if the pulse of the government were beating in
every vein, and the will of the Cabinet had its home in every bosom!
Strong men, young men, aged men, men of leisure, Christian men--all ready
to march under the stars and stripes, or to pour out their treasure for
others.
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