If there have been those who doubted whether a
confederated representative democracy were a government competent
to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a
mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled; if there have
been projects of partial confederacies to be erected upon the
ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds; if
there have been dangerous attachments to one foreign nation and
antipathies against another, they have been extinguished. Ten
years of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged the animosities
of political contention and blended into harmony the most
discordant elements of public opinion There still remains one
effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to
be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have
heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that
of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of
embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents
and virtue alone that confidence which in times of contention for
principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party
communion.
The collisions of party spirit which originate in speculative
opinions or in different views of administrative policy are in
their nature transitory.
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