Men endowed with high moral gifts and capable of exceptional moral
achievements have also their special part to play in the building of an
enduring democratic structure. In the account which has been given of
the means and conditions of democratic fulfillment, the importance of
this part has been under-estimated; but the under-estimate has been
deliberate. It is very easy and in a sense perfectly true to declare
that democracy needs for its fulfillment a peculiarly high standard of
moral behavior; and it is even more true to declare that a democratic
scheme of moral values reaches its consummate expression in the religion
of human brotherhood. Such a religion can be realized only through the
loving-kindness which individuals feel toward their fellow-men and
particularly toward their fellow-countrymen; and it is through such
feelings that the network of mutual loyalties and responsibilities woven
in a democratic nation become radiant and expansive. Whenever an
individual democrat, like Abraham Lincoln, emerges, who succeeds in
offering an example of specific efficiency united with supreme
kindliness of feeling, he qualifies as a national hero of consummate
value.
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