We are not worse than the old nations, but we
have a right to be very much better; we have the obligation to be better,
the unchanging moral obligation which lies upon every man to use the
advantage he has. We alone among nations are free, we alone among nations
inhabit a quarter of the world by ourselves, and live and grow great in
our own way with no thought of the rest. Let us think more of living
greatly than of prosecuting greatness for the sake of its pecuniary
emoluments. Let us elect presidents who will give their efforts to making
us all great together, and not to making some citizens rich at the expense
of others who are also citizens. A President can do much toward either of
these results, bad or good. He has the future of the republic in his
hands, as well as the present. Let us be the richest among nations, since
the course of events makes us so, but let us not be the most sordid. Let
it never be said, in the land which has given birth to the only true
liberty the world has ever seen, that liberty can be sold for a few
dollars in the market-place, and bartered against the promise of four
years of civil employment at a small salary!
"This party spirit, this miserable craving for the good things that may be
extracted from the service of a party, has produced the crying evil of our
times.
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