describe him as a transplanted English commoner, a second edition of
John Hampden. You shall read, in a famous poem, of Lincoln as

"New birth of our new soil, the _first_ American."

He knew it, I say: and by what divination? By a test more searching than
any mere peculiarity of manners, dress, or speech; by a touchstone able
to divide the gold of essential character from the alloy of superficial
characteristics; by a standard which disregarded alike Franklin's fur
cap and Putnam's old felt hat, Morgan's leather leggings and
Witherspoon's black silk gown and John Adams's lace ruffles, to
recognize and approve, beneath these various garbs, the vital sign of
America woven into the very souls of the men who belonged to her by a
spiritual birthright.

For what is true Americanism, and where does it reside? Not on the
tongue, nor in the clothes, nor among the transient social forms,
refined or rude, which mottle the surface of human life. The log cabin
has no monopoly of it, nor is it an immovable fixture of the stately
pillared mansion. Its home is not on the frontier nor in the populous
city, not among the trees of the wild forest nor the cultured groves of
Academe. Its dwelling is in the heart. It speaks a score of dialects but
one language, follows a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a
thousand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal which is its
life. True Americanism is this:

To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness are given by God.

To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is