Our acts our angels are, or good or ill;
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
It is wonderful what things this man accomplished alone,
what things he helped others to accomplish, what things were
accomplished by the political organization of which he was
a leader, which he bore a very large part in accomplishing.
Mr. Morrill's public life was coincident with the advent
of the Republican Party to National power. His first important
vote in the House of Representatives helped to elect Mr. Banks
to the office of Speaker, the first National victory of a
party organized to prevent the extension of slavery. From
that moment, for nearly half a century, Vermont spoke through
him in our National Council, until, one after another, almost
every great question affecting the public welfare has been
decided in accordance with her opinion.
It would be impossible, even by a most careful study of the
history of the country for the last forty years, to determine
with exactness what was due to Mr. Morrill's personal influence.
Many of the great policies to which we owe the successful
result of the Civil War--the abolition of slavery, the restoration
of peace, the new and enlarged definition of citizenship,
the restoration of order, the establishment of public credit,
the homestead system, the foundation and admission of new
States, the exaction of apology and reparation from Great
Britain, the establishment of the doctrine of expatriation,
the achievement of our manufacturing independence, the taking
by the United States of its place as the foremost nation in
the world in manufacture and in wealth, as it was already
foremost in agriculture, the creation of our vast domestic
commerce, the extension of our railroad system from one ocean
to the other--were carried into effect by narrow majorities,
and would have failed but for the wisest counsel.
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