America is explained by this double
fact: the falling and the rising again, the servitudes and the
liberties, the too long triumph of the slavery party, and the recent
victory of Mr. Lincoln, the deadly peril so lately incurred, and the
noble future that opens to-day.

Individualism is not isolation, individual convictions are not sectarian
convictions; they found on the contrary the most powerful of the
unities, moral unity. The thing which most actively dissolves societies
while seeming to unite them, is the uniformity of national dogmas which,
accepted as an inheritance, remain without action over the heart. What
are, in fact, the great bonds on earth, if not duty and affection? Now,
nothing but personal convictions, earnestly acquired by the sweat of our
brow, can destroy selfishness in us. Without this strong cement of
convictions at once individual and common, you will build nothing that
will endure. The United States have in their heart strong convictions,
which are also common convictions; through external diversities, we
have seen that fundamental conformity is real, and all earnest appeal to
Christian truths agitates this country, so divided in appearance, from
one end to the other. National life is here a reality. I do not think
that Socialism, which excuses us from believing ourselves, which places
our soul under responsible administration, and preserves us, it is said,
from the baleful disruptions engendered by individualism, succeeds as
well in destroying selfishness and in diffusing ideas of devotion and
duty. When democracy becomes socialistic, (and it never has been able to
become so in the United States,) it grinds down and reduces souls to
such a degree that nothing is left but a fine dust, a sort of
intellectual and moral powder which, it is true, is an obstacle to
nothing, but which creates nothing either. To build an edifice, stones
are needed, sand will not suffice.

Christian individualism makes the stones, and the democratic party has
just perceived it. In a country where independence of soul has
acclimated independence in all its forms, men may indeed bow the head
sometimes to democracy allied to slavery; but this debasement has a
limit, and the time is coming when they will raise their heads. Strong
beliefs are a strong rampart, the slaves of truth are free men, and
true independence begins in the heart. To have convictions in order to
have characters, to have believers in order to have citiz