"Courage and bravery always challenge admiration, but when combined with exalted patriotism, they command the affection and gratitude of mankind.
"The highest earthly care of man is to preserve as long as possible this life, and therefore the greatest human sacrifice is to give this life for one's country.
"History is full of examples of this sacrifice in all time, and yet its frequency has never lessened the appreciation of it.
"Patriotism—love of country, makes a great nation possible. Without it men would live isolated, or in mere tribes, and powerless.
"The intellectual development of man shows him at once how weak and insignificant he is alone, and he seeks, by a combination of great numbers, to attain not only great power, but even immortality. We all know that our own lives are short, but the life of a nation may be so long, that we are apt to make delusion that it may be immortal, real.
"The natural love and anxiety we have for our children, who are to live after us, extend to and embrace the country and the government in which they are to live.
"Hence, we may be said to have two lives, an individual and a national one; and the latter commands the former in proportion to its increased span. We value everything somewhat in proportion to its power to last.
"The study and contemplation of the national life, of which we are a part is always a matter of interest and solicitude.
"On every hand men are seemingly wholly engaged in devising and planning for their individual prosperity and happiness, and silently but surely national prosperity and greatness follow these individual efforts. It is only when the nation stands in immediate peril, that we become aware how much greater our anxiety is for it, than even for ourselves.
"You who can recall the thrill of horror, of anxiety, and of grim determination that came over you when the news first came that Sumter was fired upon, and the Stars and Stripes were shot away, can tell, but I can not describe what boundless sacrifices the national life is capable of calling forth.