of the nation showed itself all over the land, and in every condition of life.  None who lived through the months of April and May can ever forget the heroic and ideal sublimity of the time.  But as the weeks went on, as the immediate alarm that had roused the invincible might of the people passed away, something of the spirit of over-confidence, of excited hope, of satisfied vanity mingled with and corrupted the earlier and purer emotion.  The war was to be a short one.  Our enemies would speedily yield before the overwhelming force arrayed against them; they would run from Northern troops; we were sure of easy victory.  There was little sober foreboding, as our army set out from Washington on its great advance.  The troops moved forward with exultation, as if going on a holiday and festive campaign; and the nation that watched them shared in their careless confidence, and prophesied a speedy triumph.  But the event showed how far such a spirit was from that befitting a civil war like this.  Never were men engaged in a cause which demanded more seriousness of purpose, more modesty and humility of pretension.

The duty before us is honorable in proportion to its difficulty.  God has given us work to do not only for ourselves, but for coming generations of men.  He has imposed on us a task which, if well performed, will require our most strenuous endeavors and our most patient and unremitting exertions.  We are fairly engaged in a war which cannot be a short one, even though our enemies should before long lay down their arms; for it is a war not merely to support and defend the Constitution and to retake the property of the United States, not merely to settle the question of the right of a majority to control an insolent and rebellious minority in the republic, nor to establish the fact of the national existence and historic unity of the United States; but it is also and more essentially a war for the establishment of civilization in that immense portion of our country in which for many years barbarism has been gaining power.  It is for the establishment of liberty and justice, of freedom of conscience and liberty of thought, of equal law and of personal rights, throughout the South.  If these are not to be secured without the abolition of slavery, it is a war for the abolition of slavery.  We are not making war to reestablish an old order of things, but to set up a new one.  We are not giving ourselves and our fortunes for the purpose of fighting a few battles, and then making peace, restoring the Southern States to their old place in the Union,—­but for the sake of destroying the root from which this war has sprung, and of making another such war impossible.  It is not worth while to do only half or a quarter of our work.  But if we do it thoroughly, as we ought, the war must be a long one, and will require from us long sacrifices.  It is well to face up to the fact at once, that this generation is to be compelled to frugality, and that luxurious expenses