Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/133

Rh sentiment. For the war of 1812, with all the losses in blood and treasure entailed by it, and inspite of the peace which ignored the declared causes of the war, transformed the American Republic in the estimation of the world from a feeble experimental curiosity into a power, a real power, full of brains, and with visible claws and teeth. It made the American people, who had so far consisted of the peoples of so many little commonwealths, not seldom wondering whether they could profitably stay long together, a consciously united nation, with a common country, a great country, worth fighting for; and a common national destiny, nobody could say how great; and a common national pride, at that time filling every American heart brimful. The war had encountered the first practical disunion movement, and killed it by exposing it to the execration of the true American feeling; killed it so dead, at least on its field of action, in New England, that a similar aspiration has never arisen there again. The war put an end to the last remnant of colonial feeling; for from that time forward there was no longer any French party or any English party in the United States; it was thenceforth all American as against the world. A war that had such results was not fought in vain.

Clay might, therefore, well say, as he did say a year later in a debate in the House of Representatives: —

“I gave a vote for the declaration of war. I exerted