ighteous wars, and righteous men die in
them, but the righteous man does not love war. Conquest! Conquest of
ignorance, superstition, and indolence, conquest of the waste and void,
of the forces of earth, air, and water, and of the dying beast within
us, but no other conquest! We attained Louisiana by fair trade, for the
benefit of unborn generations. Standing armies! We want them not.
Navies! The sea is the mother of life; why call her that of death? Her
highways are for merchant ships, for argosies carrying corn and oil,
bearing travellers and the written thought of man; for voyages of
discovery and happy intercourse, and all rich exchange from strand to
strand. Why stain the ocean red? Is it not fairer when 'tis blue? Guard
coast-line and commerce, but we need no Armada for that. Make no
quarrels and enter none; so we shall be the exemplar of the nations....
Free Trade. We are citizens and merchants of the world. No man or woman
but lives by trade and barter. Long ago there was a marriage between the
house of Give and the house of Take, and their child is Civilization.
Sultan or Czar may say, "Buy here, sell there, and at this price. You
are my slave. Obey!" But who, in this century and this land, shall say
that to me--or to you? Are we free men? Then let us walk as such through
the marts of the earth. "Trade where you will," saith Nature. "It was so
I brought the tree to the barren isle, and scattered the life of the
seas." Authority of law! Respect the law, and to that end let us have
laws that are respectable. Laws are made to be kept, else we live in a
house of chicane. But there is a danger that decrees may thicken until
they form a dungeon grate for Freedom, until, like Gulliver, she is held
down to earth by every several hair. Few laws and just, and those not
lightly broken. The Contract between the States--let it be kept. It was
pledged in good faith--the cup went around among equals. There is no
more solemn covenant; we shall prosper but as we maintain it. Is it not
for the welfare and the grandeur of the whole that each part should have
its healthful life? The whole exists but by the glow within its parts.
Shall we become dead members of a sickly soul? God forbid! but sister
planets revolving in their orbits about one central Idea, which is
Freedom by Cooeperation. To each her own life, varied, rich, complete,
and her communal life, large with service rendered and received! Each
bound to other and to that cen