Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/69

Rh I can bear witness that society wore an aspect not unbecoming a nation under a great affliction. If people could only believe it there were too many mourners in Northern homes for mirth and feasting to prevail.

There were some other redeeming points in this war. The excellence of the hospitals and the tender care for the wounded surpassed, as seems to be generally admitted, all previous efforts of humanity in that sad field, and the proportion of recoveries appears to have exceeded all experience. Here, again, we see besides the remarkable power of spontaneous organisation (for much of the work was done by voluntary effort), the regard paid by a democratic community to the meanest as well as the most important of its members. These soldiers were not mere food for the cannon. The women, too, appear to have done their part in this work of patriotism and humanity, and to have put away from themselves the reproach of having been flattered and pampered into frivolity and uselessness. It was something also that the inventive faculties of an industrial people should tell for so much in the production of new weapons and ships, of new military contrivances and constructions of all kinds; that intelligence should thus, even in war, have gained the mastery over brute force; and that means should have been prepared by which society may possibly one day annul the power of those drilled masses, which at present press so heavily on the liberties of the world.

In proportion as the struggle was for a moral object its effects upon the national character will be, and in some respects have been good. The nation has gained in dignity and self-respect. A just pride has cast out weak vanity, and abated the loud boastfulness which at first