"In the lifetime of those who have attained middle age three great works have been accomplished in the world which far transcend all others in importance, and of which it is probably no exaggeration to say that the memory can never pass while the human race remains upon this planet. One of them, which is connected with the great name of Cavour, was the movement of unification by which the old and illustrious, but weak because divided, States of Italy were drawn together and fused into one great and prosperous kingdom. Another, which is chiefly connected with the name of Bismarck, was that movement of unification which has made Germany the most powerful nation upon the Continent. The third, which may, I believe, one day be thought the most important of the three, was due much less to the genius of any statesman than to the patriotism and courage of a great democracy. It was the contest of America with the spirit of secession which had arisen within its border; and although that spirit was spread over a far larger area than Ireland, although it existed over that area in a far larger proportion of the population than in Ireland, and was supported by an immeasurably greater amount of earnestness and self-sacrifice, it has now disappeared, and the present generation of Americans have in all human probability secured for centuries the unity of the great Republic of the West. These great works of consolidation have been the contributions of other nations to the history of the nineteenth century. Shall it be said of English statesmen that their most prolific and most characteristic work has been to introduce the principle of dissolution into the very heart of their Empire?"—W. E. H. Lecky.
