Such grandeur may justly excite anxiety rather than pride, for duties are in corresponding proportion.

Of course, war is an instrumentality which true civilization disowns.

Among our own countrymen, Jefferson looked to war for the extension of dominion.

It is easy to see that empire obtained by force is unrepublican, and offensive to the first principle of our Union, according to which all just government stands only on the consent of the governed.

Congress will leave undone what it ought to do, if it fails to provide promptly for the establishment of Equal Rights, whether political or civil, everywhere throughout the Union.

The idea is intolerable, that any State, under any pretension of State Rights, can set up a political oligarchy within its borders, and then call itself a republican government.

I insist with all my soul that such a government must be rejected, as inconsistent with the requirements of the Declaration of Independence.

To vote by States will keep up colonial distinctions.… The more a man aims at serving America, the more he serves his colony.

America has chosen to be, in many respects and to many purposes, a Nation; and for all these purposes her government is complete, to all these objects it is competent.

The people have declared, that, in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme.

The Constitution and laws of a State, so far as they are repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, are absolutely void.

One terrible war is more than enough; and since, after struggle, peril, and sacrifice, where every household has been a sufferer, we are at last victorious, it is not too much to insist on all possible safeguards for the future.

The National Unity must be assured,--in the only way which is practical and honest,--through the principles declared by our fathers and inwoven into the national life.

In one word, the Declaration of Independence must be recognized as a fundamental law, and State Rights, in all their denationalizing pretensions, must be trampled out forever, to the end that we may be, in reality as in name, a Nation.

Words are sometimes things; and I cannot doubt that our country would gain in strength and our people in comprehensive patriotism, if we discarded language which in itself implies certain weakness and possible disunion.

Liberty” and “Equality” are more than dollars and cents; they should be National also, and enjoy the same security.

We have heard, also, that a Nation is a people with the consciousness of Human Rights.

The French Communists have popularized the kindred word “Solidarity,” denoting a community of interests, which is an element of nationality.

There is the solidarity of nations together, and also the solidarity of a people constituting one nation, being those who, according to a familiar phrase, are “all in one bottom.

These definitions all end in the idea of unity under one government.

They contemplate political unity, rather than unity of blood or language.

Various accents of speech and various types of manhood, with the great distinction of color, which we encounter daily, show that there is no such unity here.

If the inhabitants are of one blood and one language, the unity is more complete; but the essential condition is one sovereignty, involving, of course, one citizenship.

It denotes that polity which is the normal type of government at the present advanced stage of civilization, and to which all people tend just in proportion to enlightenment and enfranchisement.

The learned Professor does not hesitate to say that such a polity is naturally dedicated to the maintenance of all the rights of the citizen as its practical end and object.