That there exists in this country an intense sentiment of nationality;
a cherished energetic feeling and consciousness of our independent and
separate national existence; a feeling that we have a transcendent
destiny to fulfil, which we mean to fulfil; a great work to do, which
we know how to do, and are able to do; a career to run, up which
we hope to ascend, till we stand on the steadfast and glittering
summits of the world; a feeling, that we are surrounded and attended
by a noble historical group of competitors and rivals, the other
nations of the earth, all of whom we hope to overtake, and even to
distance;--such a sentiment as this exists, perhaps, in the character
of this people. And this I do not discourage, I do not condemn. But,
sir, that among these useful and beautiful sentiments, predominant
among them, there exists a temper of hostility towards this one
particular nation, to such a degree as to amount to a habit, a trait,
a national passion,--to amount to a state of feeling which "is to be
regretted," and which really threatens another war,--this I earnestly
and confidently deny. I would not hear your enemy say this. Sir, the
indulgence of such a sentiment by the people supposes them to have
forgotten one of the counsels of Washington. Call to mind the ever
seasonable wisdom of the Farewell Address: "The nation which indulges
toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is, in
some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its animosity, or to its
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its
duty and its interest."
No, sir! no, sir! We are above all this. Let the Highland clansman,
half-naked, half-civilized, half-blinded by the peat-smoke of his
cavern, have his hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, and keep
the keen, deep, and precious hatred, set on fire of hell, alive, if
he can; let the North American Indian have his, and hand it down
from father to son, by Heaven knows what symbols of alligators, and
rattlesnakes, and war-clubs smeared with vermilion and entwined with
scarlet; let such a country as Poland,--cloven to the earth, the armed
heel on the radiant forehead, her body dead, her soul incapable to
die,--let her remember the "wrongs of days long past;" let the lost
and wandering tribes of Israel remember theirs--the manliness and the
sympathy of the world may allow or pardon this to them;--but shall
America, young, free, prosperous, just setting out on the highway of
heaven, "decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just begins
to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and joy,"
shall she be supposed to be polluting and corroding her noble and
happy heart, by moping over old stories of stamp act, and tea tax, and
the firing of the Leopard upon the Chesapeake in a time of peace? No,
sir! no, sir! a thousand times, no! Why, I protest I thought all that
had been settled. I thought two wars had settled it all. What else was
so much good blood shed for, on so many more than classical fields
of Revolutionary glory? For what was so much good blood more lately
shed, at Lundy's Lane, at Fort Erie, before and behind the lines at
New Orleans, on the deck of the Constitution, on the deck of the Java,
on the lakes, on the sea, but to settle exactly these "wrongs of past
days?" And have we come back sulky and sullen from the very field of
honor? For my country, I deny it.