8956. WAR OF 1812, Lessons of.—
I consider the war as made * * * for just
causes, and its dispensation as providential, inasmuch
as it has exercised our patriotism and
submission to order, has planted and invigorated
among us arts of urgent necessity, has
manifested the strong and the weak parts of our
republican institutions, and the excellence of a
representative democracy compared with the
misrule of kings, has rallied the opinions of
mankind to the natural rights of expatriation,
and of a common property in the ocean, and
raised us to that grade in the scale of nations
which the bravery and liberality of our citizen
soldiers, by land and by sea, the wisdom of our
institutions and their observance of justice,
entitled us to in the eyes of the world.—
To Mr. Wendover. Washington ed. vi, 444.
(M.
1815)
