Various

“ It is this struggle to preserve our nationality intact which has sanctified our war, from the red heart of which has grown a patriotism which, glowing like a central sun, burns away all the dross of our earlier materialism, gives as self-reliance, and frees us at last from our long tutelage to the Old World. And never had patriotism a more solid ground than ours, since the power, growth, and safety of our nationality are the progress, happiness, and prosperity of humanity itself. Everything that breathes the breath of human life, however opposed to it now, is really benefited by our growth. ”

“ The friends of our country and liberty in Europe, including the grand mass of the people, will echo back the exultant shouts of freedom as they roll on from the Pacific to the Mississippi, from the Mississippi to the lakes, and, bounding from the glad Atlantic, are carried by steam and lightning to the shores of Europe. The fetters of American Slavery will be broken by such a result, and man—immortal man, of whatever race or color, born in the image of his Maker, will emerge from chatteldom, and rise to the dignity of our common humanity. ”

“ The union of long-jarring nations is consummated, perfected in us, and shall not we, the children of all climes, be one in our own marvellous nationality? 'Divide and conquer' is old strategy, but despots and tyrants strike in vain at this wondrous mingling of all Peoples in one great PEOPLE, where the People are the Sovereigns; for this UNION is spun in the loom of Eternal Destiny, throbs in each linking life-pulse, is knit into our very nature, and kindles in the close unity and sanctity of our national life under the creative breath of God himself. ”

“ And if we will but think of it, a Nationality is always of slow growth, of gradual development. It, like man himself, is born in pain and anguish. It is indeed a living member of the Grand Man of which Humanity is composed. Since the forty years wandering of the children of Israel in the desert, how much suffering has been endured to hold it sacred! The history of the present time is but a record of fierce struggles to achieve or hold a Nationality. Poland has hung on the cross of her great enemy for centuries rather than yield its sanctity. ”

“ It is not possible that a race so full of wild natural eloquence, of graceful imagery, of tender metaphor, of stern endurance, can be utterly lost and depraved. Be it our noble task to try to save these wild children of the forest, while throwing the most complete protection around our brave frontier population. Our nationality is now fully born—on our banner is inscribed the equal rights of humanity. Our mission is revealed to us—it is that labor shall be elevated, and that equal justice be the law of actual life. ”

“ What portion of the mighty Territories uniting us with the Pacific are to be surrendered? Are we to turn over to the cruel despotism of their bloody and relentless masters, the millions of loyal people of the South, to whom we have given the most sacred pledge of the protection of the Union? And, last of all, are the two millions of slaves, as Jefferson Davis complains, who have been emancipated by the constitutional war proclamation of President Lincoln, are they to be remanded to Slavery, including the thousands who have so gallantly fought in our defence? ”

“ Her vigorous arm is round a younger and less solemn form, a form of wildering beauty, whose gold hair glitters like a nimbus in the level rays of morning; with an irresistible impulse we take her into the innermost folds of our hearts, we feel her to be our own; our banner in her right hand sways and tosses on the fresh breeze, its stars, round which new suns are ever clustering, throw their dazzling light upon her, and the young eagles turning from the sun throng around her to drink the splendor from her brighter brow. ”

“ All through the evening prevails that peculiar, cheerful din of a camp, as peculiar and characteristic as the roar of a great city; gradually the noises decline, the bugles and drums sound the tattoo, the fires grow dim, and the vast mass of hardy, resolute humanity is asleep—all except the two or three score of sick and dying men, wasted by fever, who have been jolted all day over the rough roads in the ambulances, and now groan and writhe in delirium upon their narrow stretchers in the camp hospitals. ”

“ Nothing can be seen from the bastions of the castle of the Holy Trinity, to the right or to the left, in front or in the rear, but dense, motionless, snowy mist; a spectral image of that deluge-wrath which, as it rose to sweep o'er earth, once broke against these stern, steep cliffs and beetling peaks of rock: no trace is to be seen of the buried valley, for the ghostly waves of the cold, white sea of foam shroud it closely in their stifling veils; the glowing face of the crimson sun shines not as yet upon earth's winding sheet of silent, clinging, pallid vapor. ”

“ Our Union means all this, and a great many things more which it has not yet entered into the heart of man to conceive. We can effect wonders if we will, for the individual effort makes the universal all. Who would prove recreant in such a cause? Come! it is pleasant to work for humanity; fatigue itself seems sweet, the strength of the race nerves the individual arm, labor grows into prayer, human sympathy and communion become godlike and open heaven. We are none of us so little that we can do nothing; we are all necessary to the good of the whole. ”

“ The maintenance of the Union is the one majestic question, and the Union party, in name, and in fact, is the only one that should exist, until this great issue is decided. Then, when the Union is rescued from present and future peril, we may exhume the past, use old party names, or discuss old party issues, but until then to unfold a party banner, and revive old party prejudices, is treason to our country and mankind. It is not Democrats alone, or Republicans alone, as separate parties marshalled against each other, that can save the Union. ”

“ Did it ever agree before, that our banner should be torn down from half the States and territory of the Union, and replaced by a foreign standard, having upon it but one emblazonry—the divinity and perpetuity of Slavery? And shall we treat with the Confederate authorities on this basis? No; while we will gladly treat with States and people desiring to return to the Union, with Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet brandishing over our heads the two-edged sword of Slavery and disunion, we will, in the emphatic words of General Jackson, "negotiate only from the mouths of our cannon." ”

“ Ha! the New Men scale the northern tower; they shout 'Count Henry'—they seek him in every direction!
Here I am! here I am! here I am! But you are not to pronounce sentence upon me; the dead have already given in their verdict. I go to meet the judgment and justice of my God! (He clambers up a steep cliff jutting out over the abyss.) I see thee, my eternity, as thou rapidly floatest on to meet me, black with the shadows of eternal night! shoreless, limitless, infinite! ”

“ There it will stand, and stand forever, the mighty continental breakwater between the continents of Asia and of Europe, against which the breakers of internal faction, and the waves of despotic power would dash in vain. To that home of the oppressed, to that asylum of genuine and universal freedom, millions from the Old World would then come, and unite with us in strengthening and maintaining a Government based upon the rights of humanity, and sustained by the affections of the people. ”

“ The one is godlike in her majesty, sublime through conquered suffering, the awful smile of the Crucified seems shining through the features transfigured since He wore them, and the cross glitters in all the glory of Self-sacrifice on her broad breast. She wears a girdle blue as if woven from the depths of heaven, and as we gaze we see great opals with veiled hearts of fire form into quaint old runic letters upon it, and the God-word LOVE flashes down the secret of her inner life upon us. ”

“ At the base of the western declivity lies the valley of the East Branch of the Au Sable, and beyond, the great Adirondac range, overtopped by Whiteface and Mount Tahawus. We greeted these giants with due reverence, hoping for a nearer acquaintance, for only their extreme summits are visible from that point, Whiteface bold and peaked, Tahawus round and indistinct. The great ridge, hiding all but their heads, is here jagged or flowing, steep, and dark with spruce and pine. It rises like an impassable wall; of a clear morning, a frowning barrier of granite and forest ”

“ Lincoln does, as a Union and as a war measure, the overthrow of this accursed institution will be attended with countless benefits to my country and mankind. Suppress the rebellion by the overthrow of the Southern armies, and re-establish the Government throughout all our wide domain upon the broad and eternal foundations of freedom, truth, and justice, then neither domestic traitors nor foreign despots will ever dash against its adamantine base. ”

“ Our very origin teaches us union. We have sprung from so many races that it is throbbing in our very life-pulse, and is written on the red tablets of our hearts. It runs and dances in our blood, tingles along our nerves, colors our thoughts, tones our emotions, and determines our affections. All the old and bitter European animosities die in [Pg 714] us, for its Peoples are fused in our one life pulse. A little child of our own household now unites in the sacred oneness of American life, English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Saxon, Bohemian, and Polish nationalities. ”

“ Decisive battles, vast reforms, civil or religious, great scientific discoveries or mechanical inventions, dynastic changes, political revolutions, the union or dismemberment of states, the birth or death of republics, the rise or fall of empires—these are the deep notches in the groove of time, the mighty landmarks in the pathway of humanity. It is the fate of the American Union, involving the liberty of our country and mankind, that is to be decided in our approaching Presidential election. ”

“ The right of suffrage is the great American right of every citizen, rich or poor, humble or exalted. It is the great palladium of our liberty. It is a Government, like a mighty pyramid, reposing on its broad and immovable base, the will and affections of the people. It is the people's Government, and therefore the people maintain it, and with us two millions of volunteers have rushed to its support. Therefore, while it is the best Government in peace, it is the strongest in war. ”

“ No labor is really irksome that helps the masses of our fellow men. If we have the Promethean fire, let it burn to light and warm them. The race is one, nor can we be happy while its members suffer. The moment we have done one duty faithfully, another and a higher awaits us. To be condemned to work only for ourselves were the true hell, the self-kindled fire of everlasting torture! We are the children of the nineteenth century, have been nourished upon the humane laws of this noble country, we are sons of God, brothers of Christ, heirs of glory, immortals. ”

“ The tower of the castle stands upon a bold and naked granite peak. Built of the strong rock from which it soars by the giant labor of the now dying Past, it seems during the lapse of centuries to have grown up from its stony heart, as the human breast grows from the broad back of the Centaur. A single banner streams above its lofty turret, the only banner of the Cross now raised on earth ”

“ Other voices, human voices, mingle with the wails and sobs of the passing storm: borne upward on the ghastly waves of the spectral cloud sea, they break against the walls of the granite castle.
The pallid shroud of mist is suddenly riven, and through the walls of the chasm torn through the heart of the white foam, glimpses are seen of the abyss below.
How dark it looks in the depths! A sea of heads in wild commotion surges there; the valley swarms with human life as ocean's slimy sands with creeping things that writhe and sting. ”

“ The smoke from the powder has dimmed my eyes; it seems to me as if the valley were swelling up to my feet, and again sinking back to its place; the socks crack, and cross each other at a thousand angles, and my thoughts wander, flicker, quiver in the most fantastic forms. (Seats himself upon a wall.) It is not worth the trouble to be a man—nor even an angel; the highest archangel must feel, after some centuries of existence, as we do after a few years of our fleeting life, utter weariness in his soul, and long, as we do, for mightier powers! Either one must be God—or nothing.... ”

“ The nation would be so utterly disgraced by such bad faith as would be involved in the revocation of the Emancipation Proclamation, as to earn the contempt of all honest and honorable men, and the loss of sympathy of the industrial classes and working men of Europe, whose rulers would then no longer fear to recognize or aid the South. It was the magnificent uprising of the working classes of England in favor of the Union, that alone saved both countries from a bloody and disastrous war. ”

“ Let a country nearly as large as half of Europe, taken from the rebels since the war commenced, respond. Let Shiloh, and Donelson, and Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, and New Orleans, and the Mississippi from its source to its mouth, answer. Why, this wretched calumny had scarcely been uttered by the McClellan Convention, when Sherman, the great commander, and his army had washed out the accusation in the blood of the vanquished, and unfolded our banner at Atlanta, the grand military strategic centre of Georgia, never to be recalled. ”

“ While all other men represent at best but broken fragments of the idea of goodness and holiness, he exhausts the list of virtues and graces which may be named. His soul is a moral paradise full of charming flowers, shining in every variety of color, under the blue dome of the skies, drinking in the refreshing dews of heaven and the warming beams of the sun, sending its sweet fragrance around, and filling the beholder with rapturous delight. ”

“ The very hem of his garment is healing to the touch; one hour spent in his communion outweighs all the pleasures of sin. He is the most precious and indispensable gift of a merciful God to a fallen world. In him are the treasures of true wisdom, in him the fountain of pardon and peace, in him the only substantial hope and comfort of this world and that which is to come. Mankind could better afford to lose the whole literature of Greece and Rome, of Germany and France, of England and America, than the story of Jesus of Nazareth. ”

“ The maturity and highest powers of other nations being necessary as its germs, what wonder that our nationality should be the latest born on earth, or that in view of the broad love stirring in its soul, because of its manifold descent, its first articulate accents should be ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL! This is a union in the laboratory of assimilative nature, such as has never before been dreamed of, vital and all embracing, weaving into one palpitating mesh the very fibres of being itself. ”

“ War, contention, suffering, even the law, trade, politics, or any acute state of feeling, seemed incomprehensible excrescences upon the normal state of man's being, which there, indeed, appeared to be an endless floating over placid waters, with the tinkling of oars and the even song of birds for all needful sounds, and those long, low, slanting rays of golden light forever stealing through half-closed lids, and steeping the nerves and brain and tired senses in long dreams of peace and quietude—dreams without the wearisomeness of monotony or the shock of awaking. ”