The clouds which have gathered around
us are thick and dark; sometimes they have seemed impenetrable; but
again they separate, we see the blue sky, the stars come out in all
their glory, and even the sun pours his intense rays through the
intervals of the storm. We say to ourselves, Courage! this cannot last
always; there are the firmament, the stars, and the glorious sun still
behind the clouds, and, though long hidden from us, we know they are
there, and will reveal themselves again in all their unclouded splendor.
It is with a confidence as strong as this in the very depths of their
souls that American citizens still look for the reappearance of the
stars of our destiny, the resurrection of the Union in still greater
beauty and strength, and the uninterrupted pursuit of its glorious
career through the coming ages. Such, heretofore, have been the
cherished hopes which have hung around them like a firmament, and they
are not yet prepared to believe that their political universe has been,
or ever can be, annihilated.
Nor is this confidence a mere sentiment, born of the imagination, and
nurtured by vainglorious hope. It has for its support far more
substantial grounds than any merely precarious military successes, or
any of the favorable incidents which, from time to time, may be cast
ashore as waifs by the surging tide of civil war. Let the temporary
fortunes of the war be what they will, yet the general bearing of the
old Government, its evident consciousness of strength, its unshaken
solidity in the midst of the storm which assails it, the confidence
that, even with all its errors and blunders, it is still powerful enough
to prevail--all these appeal irresistibly to the hearts and judgments of
Americans, and make them love and confide in their country, and believe
in her destiny, in spite of her misfortunes.
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