If The End Be There, If The Thing
Has Been Done, King And President, Open Suffrage And Close Suffrage,
May Alike Be Declared To Have Been Successful.
The Americans have
been in existence as a nation for seventy-five years, and have
achieved an amount of foreign respect during that period greater
than any other nation ever obtained in double the time.
And this
has been given to them, not in deference to the statesmanlike craft
of their diplomatic and other officers, but on grounds the very
opposite of those. It has been given to them because they form a
numerous, wealthy, brave, and self-asserting nation. It is, I
think, unnecessary to prove that such foreign respect has been given
to them; but were it necessary, nothing would prove it more strongly
than the regard which has been universally paid by European
governments to the blockade placed during this war on the Southern
ports by the government of the United States. Had the nation been
placed by general consent in any class of nations below the first,
England, France, and perhaps Russia would have taken the matter into
their own hands, and have settled for the States, either united or
disunited, at any rate that question of the blockade. And the
Americans have been safe at home from foreign foes; so safe, that no
other strong people but ourselves have enjoyed anything approaching
to their security since their foundation. Nor has our security been
at all equal to theirs, if we are to count our nationality as
extending beyond the British Isles.
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