the old song, “We are coming, we are coming!” and over five thousand men a day volunteer for the bloody work of achieving their country’s destiny. [Great applause.]
Europe does not understand this inexhaustible perseverance, this bull-dog tenacity. Europe does not know the American. She looks upon him as a cold, dry, matter-of-fact creature, whose soul is filled to its full capacity with business calculations and the mean cares of everyday life. Europe is mistaken. There is a profound idealism in the soul of the American, which breaks forth in its full force only on great occasions. The American believes in the great destiny of his country, believes in it with that unconquerable, immovable, religious, fanatic faith, to which the greatness of the difficulties to be overcome appears as nothing compared with the greatness of the object to he achieved. This faith lives not only in the head of the man of thought and far-seeing speculation; it hovers over the plough of the farmer, over the anvil of the mechanic, over the desk of the merchant; it is the very milk with which the American mother nourishes her baby. This faith has put our armies into the field and set our navy afloat; as in France every soldier is said to carry the marshal’s baton in his knapsack, so in America the smallest cabin-lad of the fleet, the meanest drummer-boy in the field, carries in his soul the great ideal of his country’s destiny. [Great cheering.] This faith knows no failure, and if it be staggered a moment by the blow of unexpected misfortune, it bounds up again the next moment with a wonderful recuperative power. No, this faith knows no failure; for it no sacrifice is too great, before its onset impossibility yields its stubbornness. The rebellion itself could not shake it; no, by the rebellion it has grown in intensity. The rebellion has suddenly lifted
