Speech of General R. B. Hayes, delivered at Lebanon, Ohio, August 5, 1867.
Fellow-Citizens:
President Lincoln began his memorable address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery with these words:
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
This was Abraham Lincoln's opinion of what was accomplished and what was meant by the Declaration of Independence. His idea was that it gave birth to a Nation, and that it dedicated that Nation to equal rights.
Now, so far as the performance of duty in the present condition of our country is concerned, "this is the whole law and the prophets." The United States are not a confederacy of independent and sovereign States, bound together by a mere treaty or a compact, but the people of the United States constitute a Nation, having one flag, one history, "one country, one constitution, one destiny." Whoever seeks to divide this Nation into two sections—into a North and a South, or into four sections, according to the cardinal points of the compass, or into thirty or forty independent sovereignties—is opposed to the Nation, and the Nation's friends should be opposed to him.
Washington, in his Farewell Address, says:
"The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize.... 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. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts—of common dangers, sufferings, and successes."
The sentiment of Nationality is the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence; it is the sentiment of the fathers; it is the sentiment which carried us through the war of the Revolution, and through the war of the late Rebellion; and it is a sentiment which the people of the United States ought forever to cultivate and cherish.