No people can be progressive or strong without a stern and vigorous patriotism. Cold philosophy may be cosmopolitan, but a nation, truly, is in a peculiar sense a family, and is most powerful when this feeling of brotherhood is strongest. It was this very patriotism which saved our Union in the late struggle. Our past glories, our future hopes, nerved the young soldier, who could little reason of the principles of our constitutional system, and the consciousness that he was breaking away from the land of Washington and Hancock shook the faith and weakened the courage of the Rebel. In spite of his new born allegiance, he wept at the sight of the old flag, and felt he had got home once more when he saw it floating again over his head.

Patriotism is national strength. Without it forts, arsenals, war ships and armies turn to ashes at the touch of disaster. With it the feeblest people are invincibly armed, impregnably fortified. But the patriotism of sentiment is not enough to give that robust vigor which American patriotism deserves to have. Our intellectual conception of the duties of citizenship, and of the obligations of the people to constitutional government, must supplement the more feminine influence of devotion to country as the home of our people. The speaker said that all growing countries had their revolutions, and no country could reach harmony without a struggle for existence or mastery. He thought no people ever returned to tranquility so soon after a fierce conflict as the North and South. He hoped the defeated Southerners would be welcomed back to the Union as Brethren, and not as aliens.