If there
have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative
democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management
of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been
dispelled; if there have been projects of partial confederacies to be
erected upon the ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the
winds; if there have been dangerous attachments to one foreign nation
and antipathies against another, they have been extinguished. Ten years
of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities of political
contention and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of
public opinion. There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one
sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals
throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of
political party. It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor
against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of
yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which in times of
contention for principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge
of party communion.
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