Base men there will yet be, and therefore base politics; but when once
our nation has paid the debt it owes to itself and the human race,
when once it has got out of its blood the venom of this great
injustice, it will, it must, arise beautiful in its young strength,
noble in its new-consecrated faith, and stride away with a generous
and achieving pace upon the great highways of historical progress.
Other costs will come, if we are worthy; other lessons there will be
to learn. I anticipate a place for brave and wise restrictions,--for
I am no Red Republican,--as well as for brave and generous expansions.
Lessons to learn, errors to unlearn, there will surely be; tasks to
attempt, and disciplines to practise; but once place the nation in the
condition of _health_, once get it at one with its own heart, once get
it out of these aimless eddies into clear sea, out of these accursed
"doldrums," (as the sailors phrase it,) this commixture of broiling
calm and sky-bursting thunder-gust, into the great trade-winds of
natural tendency that are so near at hand,--and I can trust it to meet
all future emergency. All the freshest blood of the world is flowing
hither: we have but to wed this with the life-blood of the universe,
with eternal truth and justice, and God has in store no blessing for
noblest nations that will not be secured for ours.
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