We believe that the war is a test of our institutions, that it is a
life-and-death struggle between the two principles of liberty and
slavery, that it is the cause of the common people the world over. We
believe that every struggling nationality on the globe will be stronger
if we conquer this odious oligarchy of slavery and that every oppressed
people in the world will be weaker if we fail. The sober American
regards the war as part of that awful yet glorious struggle which has
been going on for hundreds of years in every nation between right and
wrong, between virtue and vice, between liberty and despotism, between
freedom and bondage. It carries with it the whole future condition of
our vast continent, its laws, its policy, its fate. And standing in view
of these tremendous realities we have consecrated all that we have, our
children, our wealth, our national strength, and we lay them all on the
altar and say, "It is better that they should all perish than that the
North should falter and betray this trust of God, this hope of the
oppressed, this western civilization.
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