Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/75

Rh I know men say the war has shown us that Americans could fight. Could fight—almost every male beast will fight, the more brutal the better. The long war of the Revolution, when Connecticut, for seven years, kept 5000 men in the field, showed that Americans could fight; Bunker Hill and Lexington showed that they could fight, even without previous discipline. If such valour be a merit, I am ready to believe that the Americans, in a great cause like that of Mexico, to resist wicked invasion, would fight as men never fought before. A republic like our own, where every free man feels an interest in the welfare of the nation, is full of the elements that make soldiers. Is that a praise? Most men think so, but it is the smallest honour of a nation. Of all glories, military glory, at its best estate, seems the poorest.

Men tell us it shows the strength of the nation, and some writers quote the opinions of European kings who, when hearing of the battles of Monterey, Buena Yista, and Vera Cruz, became convinced that we were a "great people." Remembering the character of these kings, one can easily believe that such was their judgment, and will not sigh many times at their fate, but wiU hope to see the day when the last king, who can estimate a nation's strength only by its battles, has passed on to impotence and oblivion. The power of America—do we need proof of that? I see it in the streets of Boston and New York; in Lowell and in Lawrence; I see it in our mills and our ships ; I read it in those letters of iron written all over the North, where he may read that runs; I see it in the unconquered energy which tames the forest, the rivers, and the ocean; in the schoolhouses which lift their modest roof in every village, of the North; in the churches that rise all over the freeman's land: would God that they rose higher, pointing down to man and to human duties, and up to God and immortal life! I see the strength of America in that tide of population which spreads over the prairies of the West, and, beating on the Rocky Mountains, dashes its peaceful spray to the very shores of the Pacific sea. Had we taken 150,000 men and $200,000,000, and built two railroads across the continent, that would have been a worthy sign of the nation's strength. Perhaps those kings could not see it; but sensible men could see it and be glad. This waste