I conclude as I began. The late Rebellion against the nation was in the name of State Rights; therefore State Rights in their denationalizing pretensions must be overthrown. It proceeded from hostility to the sacred principles of the Declaration of Independence; therefore must these sacred principles be vindicated in spirit and in letter, so that hereafter they shall be a supreme law, coëqual with the Constitution, in whose illumination the Constitution must be read, and they shall supply the final definition of a Republic for guidance at home and for example to mankind.
In this great change we follow Nature and obey her mandate. By irresistible law, water everywhere seeks its level, and finds it; and so, by law as irresistible, man seeks the level of every other man in rights, and will find it. Human passions and human institutions are unavailing to arrest it, as Nature is stronger than man, and the Creator is mightier than the creature. The recognition of this law is essential to the national cause; for so you will work with Nature rather than against it, and at the same time in harmony with the Declaration of Independence. Here I borrow a word from Locke, who, in his Essay “Of the Conduct of the Understanding,” says, that, in dealing with propositions, we must always examine upon what they “bottom.”[78] Now, in dealing with the Rebellion, we find, that, though in the name of State Rights, it “bottomed” on opposition to National Law and open denial of the self-evident truths declared by our fathers, especially of that central truth which Abraham Lincoln, at Gettysburg, in the most touching speech of all history, thus announces: “Four-score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created Equal.”[79] Slavery was “bottomed” on the direct opposite; and so was the Rebellion, from beginning to end. Therefore we must encounter this denial. We do not extinguish Slavery, we do not trample out the Rebellion, until the vital truth declared by our fathers is established, and Nature in her law is obeyed. To complete the good work, this is necessary. Liberty is won: Equality must be won also. In England there is Liberty without Equality; in France, Equality without Liberty. The two together must be ours. This final victory will be the greatest of the war; it will be the consummation of all other victories. Here must we plant the national standard. To this championship I summon you. Go forth, victors in so many fields, and gather now the highest palm of all. The victory of ideas is grander far than any victory of blood. What battle ever did so much for humanity as the Sermon on Mars Hill? What battle ever did so much as the Declaration of Independence? But Sermon and Declaration are one, and it is your glorious part to assure the National Unity on this adamantine base.
All hail to the Republic, redeemed and regenerated, One and Indivisible! Nullification and Secession are already, like the extinct monsters of a former geological period, to be seen only in the museum of History. With their extinction must disappear the captious, litigious, and disturbing spirit engendered by State pretensions. The whole face of the country will be transformed. There will be concord for discord, smiles for frowns. There will be a new consciousness of national life, with a corresponding glow. The soul will dilate with the assured unity of the Republic, and all will feel the glory of its citizenship. Since that of Rome, nothing so commanding. Local jealousies and geographical distinctions will be lost in the attractions of a common country. Then, indeed, there will be no North, no South, no East, no West; but there will be One Nation. No single point of the compass, but the whole horizon, will receive our regard. Not the Southern Cross flaming with beauty, not even the North Star, long time guide of the mariner and refuge to the flying bondman, but the whole star-spread firmament, will be our worship and delight.
As the Nation stands confessed in undivided sovereignty, the States will not cease their appropriate functions. Interlocked, interlaced, and harmonized, they will be congenial parts of the mighty whole, with Liberty and Equality the recognized birthright of all, and no local pretension to interfere against the universal law. There will be a sphere alike for the States and Nation. Local self-government, which is the pride of our institutions, will be reconciled with the national supremacy in maintenance of human rights, and the two together will constitute the elemental principles of the Republic. The States will exercise a minute jurisdiction required for the convenience of all; the Nation will exercise that other paramount jurisdiction required for the protection of all. The reconciliation—God bless the word!—thus begun will embrace the people, who, forgetting past differences, will feel more than ever that they are One, and it will invigorate the still growing Republic, whose original root was little more than an acorn, so that it will find new strength to resist the shock of tempest or time, while it overarches the continent with its generous shade. Such, at least, is the aspiration in which all may unite.
“Firm like the oak may our blest nation rise,
No less distinguished for its strength than size;
The unequal branches emulous unite
To shield and grace the trunk’s majestic height;
Through long succeeding years and centuries live,