486 Presidential Addresses 



Civil War. In such case we should merely have 

 added another to the lamentably long list of cases 

 in which peoples have shown that after winning 

 their liberty they are wholly unable to make good 

 use of it. 



It now rests with us in civil life to make good by 

 our deeds the deeds which you who wore the blue 

 did in the great years from '61 to '65. The pa- 

 triotism, the courage, the unflinching resolution 

 and steadfast endurance of the soldiers whose tri- 

 umph was crowned at Appomattox must be sup- 

 plemented on our part by civic courage, civic hon- 

 esty, cool sanity, and steadfast adherence to the 

 immutable laws of righteousness. You left us a 

 reunited country; reunited in fact as well as in 

 name. You left us the right of brotherhood with 

 your gallant foes who wore the gray; the right to 

 feel pride in their courage and their high fealty 

 to an ideal, even though they warred against the 

 stars in their courses. You left us also the most 

 splendid example of what brotherhood really 

 means; for in your careers you showed in prac- 

 tical fashion that the only safety in our Ameri- 

 can life lies in spurning the accidental distinctions 

 which sunder one man from another, and in paying 

 homage to each man only because of what he essen- 

 tially is ; in stripping off the husks of occupation, of 

 position, of accident, until the soul stands forth 

 revealed, and we know the man only because of his 

 worth as a man. 



There was no patent device for securing victory 



