Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 91=98.= Our Foreign Relations
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It only remains that the Republic should lift itself to the height of its great duties. War is hard to bear,—with its waste, its pains, its wounds, its funerals. But in this war we have not been choosers. We have been challenged to the defence of our country, and in this sacred cause, to crush Slavery. There is no alternative. Slavery began the combat, staking its life, and determined to rule or die. That we may continue freemen there must be no slaves; so that our own security is linked with the redemption of a race. Blessed lot, amidst the harshness of war, to wield the arms and deal the blows under which the monster will surely fall!
But while thus steady in our purpose at home, we must not neglect that proper moderation abroad, which becomes the consciousness of our strength and the nobleness of our cause. The mistaken sympathy which foreign powers now bestow upon slavery,—or it may be the mistaken insensibility,—under the plausible name of "neutrality," which they profess,—will be worse for them than for us. For them it will be a record of shame which their children would gladly wash out with tears. For us it will be only another obstacle vanquished in the battle for civilization, where unhappily false friends are mingled with open enemies. Even if the cause shall seem for a while imperilled from foreign powers, yet our duties are none the less urgent. If the pressure be great, the resistance must be greater; nor can there be any retreat. Come weal or woe this is the place for us to stand.
I know not if a republic like ours can count even now upon the certain friendship of any European power, unless it be the republic of William Tell. The very name is unwelcome to the full-blown representatives of monarchical Europe, who forget how proudly, even in modern history, Venice bore the title of Serenissima Respublica. It will be for us to change all this, and we shall do it. Our successful example will be enough. Thus far we have been known chiefly through that vital force which slavery could only degrade, but not subdue. Now at last, by the death of slavery, will the republic begin to live. For what is life without liberty? Stretching from ocean to ocean,—teeming with population, bountiful in resources of all kinds, and thrice-happy in universal enfranchisement, it will be more than conqueror. Nothing too vast for its power; nothing too minute for its care. Triumphant over the foulest wrong ever inflicted, after the bloodiest war ever waged, it will know the majesty of right and the beauty of peace, prepared always to uphold the one, and to cultivate the other. Strong in its own mighty stature, filled with all the fulness of a new life, and covered with a panoply of renown, it will confess that no dominion is of value which does not contribute to human happiness. Born in this latter day, and the child of its own struggles, without ancestral claims, but heir of all the ages,—it will stand forth to assert the dignity of man, and wherever any member of the human family is to be succored, there its voice will reach,—as the voice of Cromwell reached across France even to the persecuted mountaineers of the Alps. Such will be this republic;—upstart among the nations. Aye! as the steam-engine, the telegraph, and chloroform are upstart. Comforter and helper like these, it can know no bounds to its empire over a willing world. But the first stage is the death of slavery.
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From "Prophetic Voices about America."