What, in brief, are the results, so
clear, so grand, so vast, that they stand out like mountain ranges, the
configuration of a national life? The diffusion of material comfort
among masses of men, on a scale and to an amount abolishing peasantry
forever; the dissemination of education, which is the means of life to
the mind as comfort is to the body, in no more narrow bounds, but
through the State universal, abolishing ignorance; the development of
human capacity in intelligence, energy, and character, under the
stimulus of the open career, with a result in enlarging and
concentrating the available talent of the State to a compass and with an
efficiency and diversity by which alone was possible the material
subjugation of the continent which it has made tributary to man's life;
the planting of self-respect in millions of men, and of respect for
others grounded in self-respect, constituting a national characteristic
now first to be found, and to be found in the bosom of every child of
our soil, and, with this, of a respect for womanhood, making the common
ways safe and honourable for her, unknown before; the moulding of a
conservative force, so sure, so deep, so instinctive, that it has its
seat in the very vitals of the State and there maintains as its blood
and bone the principles which the fathers handed down in institutions
containing our happiness, security, and destiny, yet maintains them as a
living present, not as a dead past; the incorporation into our body
politic of millions of half-alien people, without disturbance, and with
an assimilating power that proves the universal value of democracy as a
mode of dealing with the race, as it now is; an enthronement of reason
as the sole arbiter in a free forum where every man may plead, and have
the judgment of all men upon the cause; a rooted repugnance to use
force; an aversion to war; a public and private generosity that knows no
bounds of sect, race, or climate; a devotion to public duty that excuses
no man and least of all the best, and has constantly raised the standard
of character; a commiseration for all unfortunate peoples and warm
sympathy with them in their struggles; a love of country as
inexhaustible in sacrifice as it is unparalleled in ardour; and a will
to serve the world for the rise of man into such manhood as we have
achieved, such prosperity as earth has yielded us, and such justice as,
by the grace of heaven, is established within our borders.
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