10 THE SACRIFICE OF CONTINUAL PRAISE. • There is cause of praise for any and every course of conduct that in accordance with justice, centralizes and vitalizes our nationality. The seeds of rebellion were planted when it began to be lightly esteemed. If the nation perishes in this contest, let its epitaph be written, Died of an overdose of State's Rights. With a territory so vast as that which we possess, with so many diverse elements to be fused together, and moulded into consistency, we cannot exist permanently, unless there be, to some considerable extent at least, a concentration of Federal power. We need, and must have, a strong government. If we live at all in the future, it must be as one nation, in all the national territory. Hence it is that I hail with joy every sign of consolidation, because I see, in these, the secret springs of vitality that, in future centuries, shall send forth life-giving blood into every part of the body politic. Keeping these general considerations in view, I pass to the enumeration of some of the many reasons that should lead us to devout thanksgiving : I. “ It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year; defending us with his guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouchsafing to us, in his mercy, many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household.” There is a cause in this for high-sounding praise and loud thanksgiving. Our nationality still lives. Though for four long years the dire disease of civil war has raged fearfully, God has spared us. As a nation we are as yet, in many re
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