STATE AND NATION

Speech delivered on the occasion of the anniversary of the birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, at Galena, Illinois, April 27, 1907.

S Lincoln was the great leader of nationality in the council chamber, so Grant was the great captain of nationality on the battle-field. Both came from the common people, as all leaders must come; both developed in the heart of the Republic, as was fitting for men who were to be the statesmen and the soldiers of nationality. And above all things else, both were Americans. In the cabinet of Lincoln only the saving of the Nation was considered states were trying to destroy it; in the field of Grant only the Nation's flag was carried - no state flag was permitted in battle.

The war which gave to Lincoln and to Grant their opportunity to serve the Nation, and in serving the Nation to serve progress and liberty, was the climax of the conflict between the national idea, as Washington understood it, and the states' rights idea, as Calhoun understood it. Slavery was the occasion of the contest, but the theory of national unity, on the one hand, and the theory of states' rights, on the other hand, was the profound and historic issue.

The supremacy of the Nation over the states, the sovereignty of the Republic over its sectional divisions; the common destiny of the whole American people, which

GRANT'S LIFE WORK

405

neither politicians nor "interests can use for their purposes against the supremacy of small divisions of the American people which supremacy politicians and “interests" can use for their purposes, was the argument, conducted with bayonet and gun on fields of blood in the terrible but splendid years from 1861 to 1865. Sumter was states' rights defiant; Appomattox was nationality triumphant.

You soldiers who followed Grant when the great national commander reviewed your final parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and you disbanded to your homes, thought that Calhoun's states' rights were dead. But the old argument is on again; and this fact compels a new discussion of this question. And it is fitting that it be on this celebration of the birthday of General Grant, the meaning of whose life-work was the ever-increasing unity of the American people into an ever-stronger growing Nation.

I do not mean that General Grant wished state lines. wiped out. Nobody wishes that. Nobody wishes that. What his followers to-day demand is that state and Nation shall occupy natural instead of artificial relations to each other.

What is the natural and therefore the true and healthful province of state and Nation? It is this: the state should be supreme in all matters affecting the American people living within its limits and which do not affect the great body of the American people living in other

states.

But the state should not be supreme in matters affecting not only that portion of the American people living within its limits but also the great body of the American people living in other states.

In a word, state government should mean local selfgovernment, in which the Nation should not interfere; it should not mean participation in national government in which the state should not interfere.

On the other hand, the Nation should be supreme in all matters that affect the great body of the American people and which are not confined to that portion of the American people living in any particular state.

The Nation should not be supreme in matters which do not affect the great body of the American people, but only that portion of the American people living within any particular state.

In local matters, the Nation should not interfere; in national matters the state should not interfere.

If the provincial traditions planted in American soil by the English kings and which the American people's instinct of nationality has been steadily overcoming for two hundred years were not in the way; if the intelligence of our ninety millions were called upon to-day to establish upon clear ground a form of government, that intelligence would establish local government for local affairs, national government for national affairs.

The interference of those local agencies of government called states in matters which concern the welfare of the whole people would not be tolerated or even thought of. It is the artificial, unnatural Calhoun theory of rights-ofthe-states, as against the natural and necessary functions of the Nation, which has caused most of our internal troubles, called forth Jackson's immortal assertion of nationality, brought on the Civil War and developed the comparatively feeble debate of the present day.

It is these artificial and unnatural Calhoun rights-of

ARTIFICIAL STATES' RIGHTS

407

the-states which, one by one, have been lopped off that the tree of nationality might grow in vigor and bear the fruit of the welfare of all the people that dwell beneath its lifegiving branches. The sword of Grant was merely the pruning-hook with which these artificial and unnatural rights were cut away for the saving of the Republic.

How came to be the artificial and unnatural rights-ofthe-states, of which Calhoun was and to-day remains the ablest defender.

The settlers who came to these shores were divided by the British Crown into colonies. The settlers themselves did not create colonial boundaries. The British kings. did that. For example, how did the "sovereign state" of New York come to be? This is its origin: the dissolute Charles II., when the New Netherlands were taken from the Dutch, gave that province to his brother, the Duke of York. That was the beginning of the sovereign New York. How did the "sovereign state" of New Jersey come to be? The Duke of York gave a part of his royal gift to his friends Berkeley and Carteret. So began the "sovereign state" of New Jersey. North Carolina, by royal edict, was split off from Virginia. The Royal province of New Hampshire was severed by the English Crown from Massachusetts. These are examples of the origin of the states.

English governors were appointed over these colonies. Lord Baltimore reigned in Maryland, the Duke of York in New York, Governor Harvey in Virginia, Lord Calvert in Massachusetts. It was the policy of the British Crown to foster the spirit of colonial individuality — the spirit of unity among the American people was discouraged.

The colonists united into one people were a menace to British rule their unity meant inevitable independence through a separate nationality. But if colonial pride, colonial individuality was sufficiently strong, British rule was easier, because the mutual jealousy of the colonists divided their strength, which if united was irresistible.

But in spite of the British royal policy, the spirit of unity developed in the breasts of the colonists - little by little they came to realize that they were one people and that their common destiny was a common nationality. Their common perils and their common interests caused this, just as their common perils and common interests, ever since, have strengthened the spirit of nationality and weakened the spirit of separate and divided "sovereignties."

This spirit of nationality grew until it brought on the Revolution. The Revolution nearly failed because the royal theory of colonial pride, suspicion and independence was so strong that the colonies which had transformed themselves into "states" would not obey the Continental Congress; and Congress had no power to enforce its laws.

Only the broad nationalism of the mighty Washington kept the American troops in the field and won America's final victory. The ragged soldiers of liberty, starving for their cause at Valley Forge, and Washington on his knees amid the snows of that awful winter, personify the American people's unconquerable instinct toward nationality and furnish a pathetic protest against the theory of states' rights which left those heroes and their glorious commander so uncared for and unsupported.

The desperate peril of the Revolution over, and the colonies transformed into states, the British theory of