America, filling the present with greatest deeds and problems,
cheerfully accepting the past, including feudalism, (as, indeed, the
present is but the legitimate birth of the past, including feudalism,)
counts, as I reckon, for her justification and success, (for who, as
yet, dare claim success?) almost entirely on the future. Nor is that
hope unwarranted. To-day, ahead, though dimly yet, we see, in vistas,
a copious, sane, gigantic offspring. For our New World I consider far
less important for what it has done, or what it is, than for results
to come. Sole among nationalities, these States have assumed the
task to put in forms of lasting power and practicality, on areas of
amplitude rivaling the operations of the physical kosmos, the moral
political speculations of ages, long, long deferr'd, the democratic
republican principle, and the theory of development and perfection by
voluntary standards, and self-reliance. Who else, indeed, except the
United States, in history, so far, have accepted in unwitting faith,
and, as we now see, stand, act upon, and go security for, these
things? But preluding no longer, let me strike the key-note of the
following strain. First premising that, though the passages of it have
been written at widely different times, (it is, in fact, a collection
of memoranda, perhaps for future designers, comprehenders,) and though
it may be open to the charge of one part contradicting another--for
there are opposite sides to the great question of democracy, as to
every great question--I feel the parts harmoniously blended in my own
realization and convictions, and present them to be read only in such
oneness, each page and each claim and assertion modified and temper'd
by the others.
Pages:
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344