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which attempted its overthrow; it will secure prosperity and happiness, for it will throw open resources, hitherto untouched or wasted, to the unfettered genius of the American people, and extend the benefit of popular education into the darkest corner of the country. But it will do more. This settlement will prepare this Republic for that power and greatness among the nations of the earth, to which a manifest destiny points its finger.
Lord John Russell once defined the American war as the South fighting for independence and the North fighting for empire. I accept the word. Aye, the South is fighting for independence; aye, we are fighting for empire, and for empire, too, on the very grandest of scales! (Loud cheers.) It is so, and it cannot be otherwise.
What is the independence the South is fighting for? Look at it. It is the rending asunder of what naturally belongs together; it is the breaking up of a great Republic which promised to throw its peaceful shield over untold millions; it is the establishment of a Confederacy on the corner-stone of the most hideous abomination of the age; it is the introduction of incessant strife and all the desolations of internal war, where there might have been the abode of happy repose and civilizing industry; it is the necessity of turning a large proportion of the social forces, which might have all been devoted to the pursuit of moral and material improvement, to the savage and tyrannical pursuit of attack and defence; it is the destruction of free institutions; it is the interruption of progressive civilization; it is the ceaseless and bloody struggle of factions, instead of the tranquil government of public opinion; it is restless weakness, instead of peaceful national strength; it is the contempt of the world, instead of its admiration; it is the poor and oppressed of the world robbed of their asylum; it is a great young nation robbed of a great and happy future. Such is the breaking up of this Republic, such is Southern independence. (Applause.)
And what is the empire we are fighting for? It is indeed not a state, with an emperor at its head; it is indeed not like the empire of the Romans of old, or of Great Britain in India, who subjugated nations, and coined the sweat and tears of the oppressed into gold; it is indeed not like that of the first Napoleon, who placed his brothers and minions upon the thrones of ruined states, and threw his iron fingers like a vice around the throats of conquered nations. But look at this: here is a country of three million three hundred thousand square miles, nearly two millions of which are capable of a high order of agricultural improvement; a country washed by the two great oceans on the east and west, and intersected by the most magnificent rivers and strings of lakes; a country able to support more than a thousand million of inhabitants. This is the geographical character of the empire we are fighting for. And now as to the people. This country contains over thirty millions to-day, and by an estimate far below the ratio of increase established during the last seventy decades, it will contain one hundred million in fifty years, and five hundred million in a century—and elbow room for many more. And for the untold millions that are to inhabit it, we hold this country as a sacred trust; to them we have to transmit the foundations upon which they can build their peace, prosperity, civilization, and power. We will transmit to them institutions free from the vices and encumbrances of which European nations vainly strive to deliver themselves; free from the necessity of large and dangerous standing armies; free from that pernicious centralization of power which springs from the dangers occasioned by the close proximity of powerful and hostile neighbors; free from the blight of an aristocracy, and free from the curse of slavery. (Loud applause.) We will transmit to them liberty and equal rights, secured by laws respectable and respected; we will transmit to them a social organization in which every human being can enjoy the fruits of his labor with dignity and independence; we will transmit to them a full abundance of the means which promote the untramelled development of the moral and ideal element in human nature. We will transmit to them an untarnished national honor; we will transmit to them a power under whose shield the oppressed of the world will feel secure, and whose flag no king or combination of kings will dare to touch. These blessings we will transmit to them in the frame of a Federal Constitution, the rational form of self-government, elastic enough for ever so many hundred millions of citizens, leaving every individual and every community free to work out their own progressive development in their acknowledged spheres, while binding all together in a bond of strength. In one word, we mean to build up a Republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful than any state history tells us of; a Republic having within itself all that can make a people great, good, and happy, and being so strong, that its pleasure will be consulted before any power on earth will undertake to disturb the peace of the world. (Loud cheering.) This, my Lord John Russell, is the empire we are fighting for, and this empire we mean to have. (Great applause.)
The nations of old Europe stand aghast and look with silent terror and amazement at the Titanic grapple, at this life-or-death struggle between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers of American, between the army of the future and the army of the past. They have seen us surprised by a gigantic and well-organized rebellion, as by a thief in the night: we had no army, no navy, no arms, no war-funds in the treasury; they have seen us create army and navy out of nothing in the twinkling of an eye, and the people pouring out their untold millions of money, as if it had not cost a drop of sweat to earn them. They have seen defeat come upon us with such stunning force, that the nation seemed to reel under the blow. And they cried failure, as not the allies of our enemies here are crying failure. But then they saw this nation quietly gather up its strength, and like the silent waves of the ocean roll against the bulwarks of rebellion. Another repulse equally stunning, and “fail-
