christians may acknowledge that, as a rule, and in the long run, the decision of a country, fairly taken, is likely to be right, and that the will of the people is likely to be more just and patient than that of any person or class. no one can honestly look at the history of our race in the last quarter of a century, to go no[196] farther back, and not gladly admit the weight of evidence in favor of this view. there is no great question of principle which has arisen in politics here, in which the great mass of the nation has not been from the first on that which has been at last acknowledged as the right side. in america, to take one great example, the attitude of the northern people from first to last, in the great civil war, will make proud the hearts of english-speaking men as long as their language lasts.