XXXIX.

What Our Republic Needs Now.

ALL nations that have made any mark on the world, or left any record in history, have had a strong nationality. A Swede never was taken for a Russian; a Spaniard never was mistaken for an Englishman; a Turk never was supposed to be a Frenchman; a Scotchman never was taken for a man born on another soil. So we might go through all the nations of modern time; the same thing would hold everywhere true. It was so with the ancient nations. Wherever an Egyptian went, he was at once recognized as having come from the banks of the Nile. Wherever the Greek went, men looked upon him as a traveller from the land of Pericles and Homer. So, too, no matter how far he wandered from the Eternal City, the Roman was always looked upon as a man just from the protecting shadow of that great empire.

But how is it with Americans? And yet we have a wonderful history. We have crowded more memorable deeds within a narrow space, during the brief period of our existence, than any other nation that ever flourished. We have crowded more illustrious names into our annals, and our record in after-ages will be read with more astonishment than we now read the record of the most romantic achievements of the nations that have gone before us. But there is no people where so few of the population are sentiment of nationality. True, when Americans meet abroad, they at once recognize in each other a common sentiment; but at home they seem to have little in common

swayed so little by the

with each other. There is more sectionalism in America than in any other great nation. Take the British empire, on which the sun never sets; no British subject can be found in the circuit of the globe who does not represent the national sentiment of his empire. No Englishman will be heard anywhere to decry or disclaim his queen. There is no sectionalism in the British empire; there is no sectionalism in France; there is no sectionalism in Russia, nor in Prussia, nor in Spain, nor even in dilapidated Portugal; and yet none of these nations have inherited so great a treasure in the form of guaranteed civil rights, nor so great a treasure in all the aggregate forms of good which we denominate civilization.

The existence of sectionalism in America explains the otherwise incomprehensible fact of the lack of a spirit of nationality. Within sight of the dome of our Capitol can be seen Mount Vernon, the home of the Father of this republic. It is allowed to be put up at auction by its unworthy and sordid proprietor, in whose veins, thank God, no drop of Washington's blood flows,—and when, forsooth, it does not bring as much money as his avarice greeds for, an appeal is made to the women of America, and they come forward to purchase this home of the great patriot, to rescue it from its present hands. If there had been a national sentiment in America, that spirit of nationality would have proclaimed itself long ago, in an act which would have been everywhere applauded, and the tomb at least with the home of Washington would have been purchased by the nation and guarded in safety and veneration, as the Mecca of liberty in the Western world. Again, every dollar that is expended for the construction of ships-of-war for our navy is begrudged. We are unwilling even to maintain a line of steamers between New York and Liverpool; and much less do we seem disposed to hold any steam communication with South America. It is next to an impossibility to convince our people that any administration is willing to vindicate our international rights on the Isthmus,

although it is the natural and necessary highway to the western borders of our empire. Again, while the nation is clamoring for a railroad across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, no administration seems to have the will to press it upon Congress. It is recommended session after session, but it remains a dead letter. These are only a few illustrations that we could bring to show that the leading men of America -those who govern us, who sit in our legislatures, State and national-are insensible to the claims of a sentiment of nationality. There is a spirit of jealousy between the representatives in Congress from one section of the nation, which shows itself in opposition to any benefit or advantage to be gained by any or all other sections. New York, the commercial metropolis of the Western world, has been trying for a quarter of a century to have a mint established there, even if it were only a branch mint. But we have been obliged to send one thousand million dollars to Philadelphia to be coined, at great expense and still greater inconvenience and protracted delay. In all our public debates this spirit of sectional jealousy arises, and it mixes itself up with all our legislation, and we perceive the spirit everywhere. All these things indicate a lack of national spirit. Now, this can be accounted for, it is true, in part, by the fact that we have not had time to become a complete nation. John C. Calhoun said, shortly before he died, "that we were not a nation, but only a confederation of nations." This would not be true if everybody at the North had a national sentiment, or if everybody at the South had a national sentiment. But it happens that there are so many diversities of opinion, and so great a lack of national sentiment, in every part of the country, -almost as much in one part as in another,—that it is only when some great national event transpires that we call out and create for the moment a common sentiment of nationality. It is then participated in by the great masses.

We have had a few national men in America, and they

have helped to preserve among our people all the nationality we have. The fathers of the Revolution and the early statesmen of the republic agreed so well in every crisis that they left us an example of nationality. But it was chiefly because they were great men, lived in moulding times, and were compelled by the necessities of the case to aggregate opinions and principles as well as to combine their action upon common points of effort.

After their time, however, the nation was obliged to pass through convulsions such as the war of 1812 on the question of fighting England, or in 1820 on the question of compromising the slavery matter, or in 1830 on the question of the Union. as against nullification, or in 1850 on the question of the Union as against the negro "business," and more recently on the Lecompton difficulty.

The instances we have adduced show the prevailing lack of a national sentiment. This has arisen chiefly from three causes-1st, Tranquillity in our republic, and peace with foreign nations; 2d, The immense influx of foreigners, who did not comprehend the institutions of our country well enough to act as they would have acted in their own nations; and, 3d, This general mixing up of all the nations of the earth in the eager strife for gain, which has demoralized this country to a greater extent than all other causes put together.

One of these causes, although it may not be primary in its character, should not be lightly passed over. We had hitherto lived in such tranquillity, and were so exempt from foreign wars, that we have not had our own domestic troubles blotted out by greater causes of anxiety in our conflicts with other nations. It was a maxim of statesmanship in Rome, and it has since been made so in Paris, to divert public attention from local and domestic interests to the more engrossing anxieties of foreign struggles. All Roman statesmen, however much they might differ in other things, agreed that the

safest way to insure tranquillity in Rome was to send its legions into foreign nations to battle. Rome was always tranquil while a great foreign war was going on; and that stupendous republic had been in existence seven hundred years before the officers of peace had an opportunity to shut the gates of the temple of Janus.

They remained shut for twenty-five years; but historians agree that during that period many of the seeds were sown for the decline which ended finally in the fall of the Roman empire.

In our own history we find some faint illustration of the truth of this philosophy. When one generation had died after the Revolution, and the question of the complete assertion of our independence came up, there was a strong disinclination on the part of many of our people to another conflict with England. True, the memory of the terrible struggle of the War of Independence was yet fresh in the recollections of many of our countrymen, and could they have decided the national councils they would have voted against another war. But a new generation had come on, and, although young men were disposed to go forward in a further and final vindication of the rights of the country against the oppressive measures and the galling insults of Great Britain, it was with the greatest difficulty that the Congress of the United States could be persuaded to make the war of 1812. But when the war had once been proclaimed, the national sentiment of the nation was aroused, and it launched itself forward into the contest with heroism which ended in victory. At the close of that war the nation was so much occupied in the serious business of gaining a livelihood, that we went on quietly for many years, so much occupied in our own affairs that we allowed many an insult from a foreign Power to pass by without retribution. Mexico at last assumed such ground as could not be admitted, and that war began. The President called for fifty thousand