must possess within itself the power to sustain itself. Our chief
magistrate becomes otherwise a mere puppet, and our Congress a shallow
mockery, and the shadow only of a legislative body. Our nationality
becomes a word, and nothing more. Our place among the nations becomes
vacant, and the great Republic, our pride and the world's wonder,
crumbles into fragments, and with its downfall perishes the hope of the
oppressed of every clime. I wonder, Beverly, that you can coldly argue
against the very life of your country, and not feel the parricide's
remorse! Have you no lingering affection for the glorious structure
which our fathers built for and bequeathed to us, and which you now seek
to hurl from its foundations? Have you no pride and love for the brave
old flag that has been borne in the vanguard to victory so often, that
has shrouded the lifeless form of Lawrence, that has gladdened the
heart of the American wandering in foreign climes, and has spread its
sacred folds over the head of Washington, here, on your own native
soil?"

"Yes, Harold, yes! I love the Union, and I love and am proud of the
brave old flag; I would die for either, and, although I reason with you
coldly, my soul yearns to them both, and my heart aches when I think
that soon, perhaps, they will no more belong to me. But I must sacrifice
even my pride and love to a stern sense of duty. So Washington did, when
he hurled his armed squadrons against the proud banner of St. George,
under which he had been trained in soldiership, and had won the laurel
of his early fame. He, too, no doubt, was not without a pang, to be
sundered from his share of Old England's glorious memories, the land of
his allegiance, the king whom he had served, the soil where the bones of
his ancestors lay at rest. It would cause me many a throb of agony to
draw my sword against the standard of the Republic--but I would do it,
Harold, if my conscience bade me, although my nearest friends, although