Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/280

244 not hostile, certainly not influential in national affairs. The foundation was laid by President Lincoln and his advisers in the conduct of the war and the foreign policy of the United States. The consummation was effected by the diplomacy of Secretary William H. Seward. Yet, by a remarkable coincidence, when the treaty came to be approved, it bore the signature of a Southern president—Andrew Johnson.

Whatever criticisms or eulogies, just or unjust, patriotic or partisan, may be pronounced upon the actors or the agents in our several wars and acquisitions of territory, all must recognize the hand of destiny which led America through the several steps of development to her present sublime position among the nations of the world. None can deny, perhaps none will wish to deny, that the corner stone in the foundation of the greatness of our country is its wide extent of territory. Beginning with the sparse settlements stretched along the Atlantic coast, the thirteen original States, born in revolution, and unwilling to surrender their separate existence, were drawn together by a wonderful law of attraction. They founded a government of which the vital principle was compromise. This principle, not deduced from the formulas of philosophers, but evolved from the logic of events, and utilized by the practical common sense of the American people, has demonstrated itself to be the true principle of free government.

The Union, thus constructed, owed its marvelous development, and the catholicity of its institutions, to the compromise of the varied interests and diverse sentiments of its constituent sections. The people of this self-made nation have cause to rejoice that the United States was built by many factors, each of which has performed a distinctive, honorable, and necessary part in its