What we are Learning

The American people are just now learning a great lesson and if they do not profit by it they will lose all claim to Yankee shrewdness.  They are learning that it is not safe to the country to foster institutions that are in antagonism to its liberties, until they become powerful enough to assert their supremacy.  That if it warms into life a serpent within its bosom, they must expect it to turn and sting its benefactor.  They are learning that the boasted sympathy of foreign nations cannot be depended upon, but that we must rely upon our own strength for independence.  The fiery ordeal through which our country is passing will teach us self-reliance, a more entire dependence upon ourselves, a fostering of those institutions that give permanency to our Government and the lopping off of those that tend to impair its strength.  We shall learn to become more attentive to our national character, more jealous of our country’s honor and more embittered in our feelings toward old England.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, February 4, 1862, p. 2