No. L] CULTURE OF CIVIC VIRTUES. 37 



local government, the people have the largest liberty to ad- 

 just and manage their own affairs. The federal principle, 

 when broadly stated, is very simple, and it is this local self- 

 government for loeal purposes and representation in the 

 councils of the State and nation for general purposes. 



We have always been an aggressive people. In the last 

 century we have extended amazingly our boundaries, by 

 purchase, by treaty, by conquest and by annexation. As 

 the population advanced in the new territory we have always 

 instituted local self-government, and towns or counties and 

 States have grown up in the wilderness, until nineteen flour- 

 ishing commonwealths have been added to the federal Union 

 out of what was once foreign territory. They have become 

 a part of the nation ; as Chief Justice Chase of the supreme 

 court has stated it, admitted into "an indestructible Union 

 composed of indestructible States." 



The strength of the federal principle has been severely 

 tested in this country. Slavery, a patriarchal institution 

 supposed to have some scripture in its favor, led a cluster 

 of States to renounce their allegiance to the Union and to 

 set up a government for its protection ; but even here they 

 paid the constitution the highest compliment any document 

 ever received by modelling their new government after it. 

 Until the civil war no one had any idea of the power of the 

 federal principle. It triumphed in Avar, but it was equally 

 triumphant in peace. The cause of the contention removed, 

 there was nothing so natural as for the States to take their 

 places again in the Union. The expectations of so-called 

 statesmen were disappointed. No standing army was needed, 

 and the question of the dismemberment of this republic is 

 settled. 



Neither had anybody any idea of the spirit of the federal 

 principle. During the Avar avc used to sing "Hang Jeff 

 Davis on a sour apple tree," but wdien the Avar Avas over our 

 flag, a creation of immortal beauty, came back to us un- 

 stained by the blood of a single rebel. There is not a child 

 or a woman in the Avhole south that can point to a southern 

 soldier's grave and say: "My father or my husband was 

 sacrificed to satisfy federal vengeance." The president of 



