The fate
of nations and empires, as revealed in history, is apparently against
such an idea. Many empires have already appeared, risen to power, fallen
into decay, and become dismembered, having run their course and
disappeared. May it not be so with our own great confederacy of States?
The authority against a great, practical, enduring political unity is
respectable. May we not be fighting for an illusion? What guarantee have
we in history, science, and common sense, that our Federal Union will
not crumble as the empires of the past have done, and as the political
prophets of Europe, casting the horoscope of nations in the shadows of
their own political fragmentarism, have predicted for us? Even should
the rebels South be chastised, and the Union restored for the present,
have we solid reasons for believing in the permanency of our
institutions? What is the warrant for our faith that American destiny
comprehends the principle of American unity?
People contract habits of thought in a great measure from the nature of
the institutions which surround them. Europe could think nothing but
feudalism at one time; she had no conception of religion outside the
Church of Rome. The Turk thinks by the standard of political absolutism
and the Moslem faith. The reflections of every people are cast in the
national mould; it is so the world over, and has been so in all times.
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