Whatever other meaning may attach to the word Americanism, Dr. Abbott
points to its best definition. But what he has in mind cannot be
expected in the absence of a spirit which is made manifest in real
fraternalism conjoined with faithful devotion to intelligent convictions
of duty. This spirit will take patriotism out of the realm of mere
sentiment into that of noble passion. It will give to citizenship so
high a meaning that failures in civic duty will take on--as they clearly
ought to do--the character of sins against one's own manhood and against
the brotherhood of which the citizen is a member. If this spirit be
underneath our laws and manifest in their administration, we need have
little anxiety as to their statutory form. Political as well as
scriptural wisdom expresses itself in the statement that the "letter" of
the law kills, the "spirit" alone gives life.