N. C. Burt

“ And it is because the whole human race is gathered into nations; it is because the State proposes as its true object the highest good of all its citizens; and especially is it because the State as a sovereign power, not only holds the persons and property of its citizens at its disposal, but deals with its citizens and with all mankind as moral beings, and as itself a moral person responsible to God,—being a sovereign only as his minister;—it is because of all this, that we give the name history to the biography of nations rather than to that of any other society. ”

“ The commerce of the Pacific waits to be ours. How long till Pacific railroads shall bind our eastern and western coasts together, and our country, standing in the midst of the earth and reaching out its arms on either hand, clasp the entire sphere in its embrace? Our country is in the dew of its rejoicing youth, and has but the dimmest consciousness [Pg 24] and dream of its own strength, and who can predict the glory of its manhood, when in the fullest self-consciousness, it shall exert to the utmost its matured and mighty energies? ”

“ The Christian does not demand that the State shall be a theocracy. The State and the Church has each its appropriate end and sphere. The prime end of the State is the dispensing of justice, the protecting of its citizens, and the securing by agriculture and commerce and the arts, and by the intelligence and virtue of its citizens, of the general welfare. The prime end of the Church, so far as man is concerned, is the promotion of his spiritual and eternal good, through the agency of the Scriptures of revealed truth. ”

“ And blessed is that nation alone. Here is the solution of the question of our destiny. It is in making the Lord the God of our country, that we are safe—that we are prosperous—that our glorious destiny becomes inevitable. Our destiny is left to ourselves. ”

“ Nations of necessity have a religious character. The civil government is of God's ordination, and does God's ministry. The civil government is administered by and upon men who are religious beings, who cannot under any circumstances divest themselves of their religious character. The prevalence of true religion amongst its citizens, is of the highest advantage to the State.
Every nation has its God or its gods. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." Blessed is America so long as a pure, scriptural Christianity stimulates and governs its public life. ”

“ Its classes of citizens and their occupations, should be so diversified and numerous, that in the mutual dependence and support, the highest possible benefit may result. Size has to do materially with the idea of a nation. This, indeed, makes all the difference between a family and a nation, if only sovereign prerogatives be conceded to the family, as was done in patriarchal times. It is in the life of the State rather than that of the family, that we have civilization. The very word civilization implies this—civis, being a citizen, and civitas, a State. ”

“ Our commerce whitens every sea and swarms in every port. Our people are intelligent, and virtuous, and happy beyond all example. Our government is strong and efficient. What is needed to make our destiny glorious, but just to go on in the way that we have come? ”

“ The functions of supreme government are rarely exercised over a very small body of men. And nations need [Pg 8] to be of some magnitude to realize the benefits of national existence. A nation, just in virtue of its national constitution, is in a measure separated from the rest of mankind. It has an existence by itself. It ought, then, to have a completeness in itself. ”

“ We might come to think it very problematical whether our country has sufficient vital force to work into good American citizens the hordes of infidels, paupers, criminals, cast upon our shores from the nations of the old world;—whether our country has sufficient wisdom to guide its own vexed domestic questions to a proper and satisfactory issue, and to balance and regulate the rival and numberless interests of a country widening indefinitely in extent;—whether—but no, we do not need thus to forecast the future to ascertain our probable destiny. ”

“ Yet how is national life cultivated? Is it by self-effort only, put forth from a stimulus self-begotten? Or is not civilization, like the education of the individual, in some measure dependent on the efforts of others? ”

“ And it is only as America teaches her children to fear God and do their duty; it is only as our virtuous citizenship escape from the chains of corrupt party and procure for themselves a fair representation in the offices of government—exerting themselves for the purification of corrupt men, rather than for the promotion of their evil designs ”

“ It is right that our government enforces, to a good degree, the observance of the Christian Sabbath. It is demanded that such observance be enforced in still larger degree. Our government, if it be bound to afford an education to the children of its citizens at all, is bound to give them a Christian education. The Bible should be in all our Public Schools. Chaplains should be provided for all State institutions, as they are for the Army and Navy. ”

“ Permit me to state to you my conviction, that desirable as it is that days of religious observance be appointed by our civil authorities, the regular appointment of annual fast-days or thanksgivings, will not secure for any long period a general and hearty observance. I should much prefer the appointment by our civil authorities of a fast-day, in view of any public calamity impending or experienced, or of a day of thanksgiving, in view of deliverence or exemption from such calamity. In such case we might hope that the day would secure a suitable and profitable observance. ”

“ And now, I utter it to you, my hearers and fellow-citizens, as the solemn testimony of the Lord our God, that so surely as ignorance and moral corruption and lust of power, become generally prevalent, and popery and infidelity attain the supremacy among us, it matters not at all that we have had a ballot-box, and a free press, and free schools, and the whole circle of liberal institutions,—these will become but the insignia of our shame ”

“ Looking this day upon the brotherhood of nations, we behold one sight which might excite our joyful hope, were it not for another closely connected with it, which must excite our astonishment and sorrow. We behold, on the one hand, the nations of the earth brought into close proximity and to the possibility of easy friendship, by the many physical improvements of the age. ”

“ The above statement is correct, so long as we take a merely natural view of mankind—so long as we view men merely in their moral relations. Viewing men by the light of revelation and in relations more strictly religious, Church-biography would still better deserve the name of history. But for some reason, these religious relations are not commonly recognized in their importance. Like the historian, the moral philosopher commonly ignores man's lapsed condition, and all the great truths which distinguish supernatural religion. See Wardlaw's "Christian Ethics." ”

“ Each nation has a certain completeness in itself, yet it is but a partial completeness. Nations are still connected. They are dependent on one another. They are under obligations to one another. They are alike and together bound to the same God. They are a brotherhood before God their common Father. Patriotism has its limits, and philanthropy, its appropriate and transcendent sphere. ”

“ State must, on the one hand, respect the conscience of its citizens, leaving them free in religious opinions and practices; and yet, on the other hand, it must seek to promote the interests of true religion, with whose prosperity the public welfare is vitally connected. ”

“ Turn a child into the woods, and let him grow up to manhood without the society or the sight of his fellow-men. Where is his self-culture? He is a wild man of the woods; he is a barbarian. So nations need the stimulus which comes from a contact with their fellow nations; and that, not only that they may advance in civilization, but even that they may save themselves from going down into barbarism. See China, the largest empire of men, yet separated from its neighbors by a stone wall. See Hindostan, insulated by surrounding seas and mountains, and destitute of commerce for many hundred years. ”

“ Yet the ideas of race, language, country and government, all enter into, and with greater or less distinctness, and to a greater or less extent, constitute the general idea of a nation. The French have in general the same origin: they speak the same language: they possess a definite territory: they live under one government. ”

“ I will not undertake to show that the theory of a social compact—the theory that all just powers of government are derived from the people, who voluntarily yield them up and consent to their exercise—that this theory is false. ”

“ The race of men we behold in a family of nations. We may consider the relations of these nations one to another.
I use the word family in reference to nations, to indicate at once, at the outset, and as fully as possible, their true relations. Nations are most closely and most tenderly related. Their relation is one of blood, and their one parent is God. "He hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." ”

“ Not surely voluntary associations, formed for the promotion of the arts, or commerce, or philosophy, or benevolent undertakings. Such associations are too limited in the numbers which belong to them, [Pg 9] too narrow and partial in the ends they propose and the means they use, to justify us in calling their biography history. We must find a society which, as nearly as possible, shall comprehend in its members the entire human race, command in its workings all human energies, involve in its consideration all human interests; the biography of such a society we may call history. ”

“ The Swiss are one nation, yet speak some of them French, others German, others Italian.
Occupation of the same territory is not essential to nationality. Not only may a nation be scattered,—its parts dwelling in several lands,—as in the case of the Jews, but a nation may migrate in a body and preserve its national character in transit, or it may have no fixed territorial abode whatever. The Tartars and the Arabs [Pg 7] are nations ever in motion, and held but the most loosely by any tenure of soil.
And even citizenship under the same government, does not of itself exhaust the idea of a nation. ”

“ It is, moreover, a kingdom which the Lord God will set up upon earth, which, as a little stone cut out of the mountain, shall smite and break and crush the kingdoms of earth, and itself occupy their place. "The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever." ”

“ In New England, the regular, annual thanksgiving preserves its sacredness through customs and associations, which were established in the very infancy of the country, and which have grown up with it,—customs and associations, which cannot elsewhere be created. ”

“ What shall prevent the flood of population from pouring westward and overflowing these territories? Our internal resources have only begun to be developed. What shall prevent their utmost and magnificent development? ”

“ Being called together by our civil authorities, and that to recognize the hand of God over us as a people, the occasion is suitable for considering the general subject of National Character, and in connection with it, the duties and destinies of our own nation. ”

“ Community of language commonly follows upon community of birth. Yet community of language does not of itself determine or secure nationality. The English and ourselves speak the same language, yet are distinct nations. ”

“ See the physical dependence of nations. Does not every nation on the face of the earth contribute to the conveniences and comforts and luxuries, not to say the [Pg 19] necessities of our every-day life? ”

“ Moreover, the Bible recognizes the importance of national relations in the position it assigns to nations in the historic and prophetic development of the plan for man's redemption. Before the advent of our Saviour, God was in covenant with a nation. ”

“ It ought also to be observed that human governments, at the best, are obliged to leave many interests of their citizens uncared for, or to be cared for by other agents than their own; also, that human governments are often corrupt and fail to discharge their proper functions. ”

“ Three millions of people have increased to thirty. Immense forests have been subdued, and the soil yields supplies for the famishing of other lands. Great manufactories crowd our rivers and darken our towns. ”

“ Our past experience and present condition seem to confirm the tokens of our auspicious beginning. Colonial dependence has given way to National independence. Thirteen States have increased to thirty-one. ”

“ It would easily follow from this mutual dependence of nations, even if it did not come to us in a more direct way, that the intercommunion of nations should be guided and governed by religious principles, and for the end of highest mutual spiritual benefit. ”