And yet it must not be forgotten that there was a name of different character which was much employed. Congress was called “Continental,” the army “Continental,” the money “Continental,”—a term certainly of unity, as well as vastness. But there was still another national designation, accepted at home and abroad. Our country was called “America,” and we were called “Americans.” Here was a natural, unsought, and instinctive name,—a growth, and not a creation,—implying national unity and predominance, if not exclusive power, on the continent. It was used not occasionally or casually, but constantly,—not merely in newspapers, but in official documents. Not an address of Congress, not a military order, not a speech, which does not contain this term, at once so expansive and so unifying. At the opening of the first Continental Congress, Patrick Henry, in a different mood from that of a later day, announced the national unity under this very name. Declaring the boundaries of the several Colonies effaced, and the distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New-Yorkers, and New-Englanders as no more, he exclaimed, in words of comprehensive patriotism, “I am not a Virginian, but an American.”[64] Congress took up the strain, and commissioned Washington as commander-in-chief of the armies “for the defence of American liberty”;[65] and Washington himself, in his first general order at Cambridge, assuming his great command, announced that the armies were “for the support and defence of the liberties of America;[66] and in a letter to Congress, just before the Battle of Trenton, he declared that he had labored “to discourage all kinds of local attachments and distinctions of country, denominating the whole by the greater name of American.”[67] Then at the close of the war, in its immortal Address, fit supplement to the Declaration of Independence, Congress said: “Let it be remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of Human Nature.”[68] Washington again, in his letter to Congress communicating the National Constitution, says, in other words, which, like those of Congress, cannot be too often quoted, that “the consolidation of our Union” is “the greatest interest of every true American.”[69] Afterwards, in his Farewell Address, which from beginning to end is one persuasive appeal for nationality, after enjoining upon his fellow-citizens that “unity of government which constitutes them one people,” he gives to them a national name, and this was his legacy: “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”[70] Thus did Washington put aside those baneful pretensions under which the country has suffered, even to the extent of adopting a National Name, which, like the Union itself, should have a solid coercive power.
It is not impossible that in the lapse of time history will vindicate the name adopted by Washington, which may grow with the Republic, until it becomes the natural designation of one country. Our fathers used this term more wisely than they knew; but they acted under Providential guidance. Is it not said of the stars, that God “calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His might”?[71] Is it not declared also that He will make him who overcometh a pillar in the temple, and give to him a “new name”?[72] So, as our stars multiply, and the nation overcometh its adversaries, persuading all to its declared principles, everywhere on the continent, it will become a pillar in the temple, and the name of the continent itself will be needed to declare alike its unity and its power.
4. To these “unities,” derived from history and the heart of the people, may be added another, where Nature is the great teacher. I refer to the geographical position and configuration of our country, if not of the whole continent, marking it for one nation. Unity is written upon it by the Almighty hand. In this respect it differs much from Europe, where, for generations, seas, rivers, and mountains kept people apart, who had else, “like kindred drops, been mingled into one.” There is no reason why they should not commingle here. Nature in every form is propitious. Facility of intercourse, not less than common advantage, leads to unity: both these are ours. Here are navigable rivers, numerous and famous, being so many highways of travel, and a chain of lakes, each an inland sea. Then there is an unexampled extent of country adapted to railways; and do not forget that with the railway is the telegraph, using the lightning as its messenger, so that the interrogatory to Job is answered, “Canst thou send lightnings that they may go?”[73] The country is one open expanse, from the frozen Arctic to the warm waters of the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains,—and there already science supplies the means of overcoming this barrier, which in other days would have marked international boundaries. The Pacific Railway will neutralize these mountains, and complete the geographical unity of the continent. The slender wire of the telegraph, when once extended, is an indissoluble tie; the railway is an iron band. But these depend upon opportunities which Nature supplies, so that Nature herself is one of the guardians of our nation.
He has studied history poorly, and human nature no better, who imagines that this broad compacted country can be parcelled into different nationalities. Where will you run the thread of partition? By what river? Along what mountain? On what line of latitude or longitude? Impossible. No line of longitude or latitude, no mountain, no river, can become the demarcation. Every State has rights in every other State. The whole country has a title, which it will never renounce, in every part, whether the voluminous Mississippi as it pours to the sea, or that same sea as it chafes upon our coast. As well might we of the East attempt to shut you of the West from the ocean as you attempt to shut us from the Mississippi. The ocean will always be yours as it is ours, and the Mississippi will always be ours as it is yours.
Our country was planned by Providence for a united and homogeneous people. Apparent differences harmonize. Even climate, passing through all gradations from North to South, is so tempered as to present an easy uniformity from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Unmeasured supplies of all kinds, mineral and agricultural, are at hand,—the richest ores and the most golden crops, with the largest coal-fields of the world below and the largest corn-fields of the world above. Strabo said of ancient Gaul, that, by its structure, with its vast plains and considerable rivers, it was destined to become the theatre of a great civilization.[74] But the structure of our country is more auspicious. Our plains are vaster and our rivers more considerable, furnishing a theatre grander than any imagined by the Greek geographer. It is this theatre, thus appointed by Nature, which is now open for the good of mankind.
Here I stop, to review the field over which we have passed, and to gather its harvest into one sheaf. Beginning with the infancy of the Colonies, we have seen how, with different names and governments, they were all under one sovereignty, with common and interchangeable rights of citizenship, so that no British subject in one Colony could be made an alien in any other Colony; how, even at the beginning, longings for a common life began, showing themselves in “loving accord”; how Franklin regarded the Colonies “as so many counties”; how the longings increased, until, under the pressure of the mother country, they broke forth in aspiration for “an American Commonwealth”; how they were at last organized in a Congress, called, from its comprehensive character, “Continental”; how, in the exercise of powers derived from “the good people,” and in their name, the Continental Congress put forth the Declaration of Independence, by which the sovereignty of the mother country was forever renounced, and we were made “one people,” solemnly dedicated to Human Rights, and thus became a Nation; how the undivided sovereignty of all was substituted for the undivided sovereignty of the mother country, embracing all the States as the other sovereignty had embraced all the Colonies; how, according to Franklin, the States were locked together, “so as never to be separated, but by breaking them to pieces”; how in an evil hour the Confederation was formed in deference to denationalizing pretensions of the States; how the longings for national life continued, and found utterance in Congress, in Washington, and in patriot compeers; how Jay wished the States should be like “counties”; how “Washington denounced State sovereignty as “bantling” and “monster”; how at last a National Convention assembled, with Washington as President, where it was voted that “a National Government ought to be established”; how in this spirit, after ample debate, the National Constitution was formed, with its preamble beginning “We, the people,” with its guaranty of a republican government to all the States, with its investiture of Congress with all needful powers for the maintenance of the Government, and with its assertion of supremacy over State constitutions and laws; how this Constitution was commended by Washington in the name of the Convention as “the consolidation of our Union”; how it was vindicated and opposed as creating a National Government; how on its adoption we again became a Nation; then how our nationality has been symbolized in the National Flag, the National Motto, and the National Name; and, lastly, how Nature, in the geographical position and configuration of the country, has supplied the means of National Unity, and written her everlasting guaranty. And thus do I bind the whole together into one conclusion, saying to all, We are a Nation.
Nor is this all. Side by side with the growth of National Unity was a constant dedication to Human Rights, which showed itself not only in the Declaration of Independence, with its promises and covenants, but in the constant claim of the rights of Magna Charta, the earlier cries of Otis, the assertion by the first Continental Congress of the right of the people “to participate in their legislative council,” the commission of Washington as commander-in-chief “for the defence of American liberty,” and the first general order of Washington, on taking command of his forces, where he rallies them to this cause; also in the later proclamation of Congress, at the close of the Revolution, that the rights contended for had been “the rights of Human Nature,” and the farewell general order of Washington, on the same occasion, where the contest is characterized in the same way: so that Human Rights were the beginning and end of the war, while the nation, as it grew into being, was quickened by these everlasting principles, and its faith was plighted to their support.