Among nations, no one has more need of full knowledge of itself
than the United States, and no one has hitherto had less. It has
hardly had a distinct consciousness of its own national existence,
and has lived the irreflective life of the child, with no severe
trial, till the recent rebellion, to throw it back on itself and
compel it to reflect on its own constitution, its own separate
existence, individuality, tendencies, and end. The defection of
the slaveholding States, and the fearful struggle that has
followed for national unity and integrity, have brought it at
once to a distinct recognition of itself, and forced it to pass
from thoughtless, careless, heedless, reckless adolescence to
grave and reflecting manhood. The nation has been suddenly
compelled to study itself, and henceforth must act from
reflection, understanding, science, statesmanship, not from
instinct, impulse, passion, or caprice, knowing well what it does,
and wherefore it does it. The change which four years of civil
war have wrought in the nation is great, and is sure to give it
the seriousness, the gravity, the dignity, the manliness it has
heretofore lacked.
Though the nation has been brought to a consciousness of its own
existence, it has not, even yet, attained to a full and clear
understanding of its own national constitution. Its vision is
still obscured by the floating mists of its earlier morning, and
its judgment rendered indistinct and indecisive by the wild
theories and fancies of its childhood.
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