But when the actual observation of public
measures goes hand in hand with study, when the mind is capable of
comparing the present with its analogies in the past, and of grasping the
principle that belongs to both, this is to have history for a living
tutor. If the student be fit for such instruction, he will be seen to
act afterwards with the elevation of a high ideal, and with the
expediency, the sagacity, the instinct of what is fit and practicable,
which make the advantage of the man of actual affairs over the mere
theorist.
And it was another advantage of his being brought early into the sphere
of national interests, and continuing there for a series of years, that
it enabled him to overcome any narrow and sectional prejudices. Without
loving New England less, he loved the broad area of the country more. He
thus retained that equal sentiment of patriotism for the whole land with
which his father had imbued him, and which is perhaps apt to be impaired
in the hearts of those who come late to the national legislature, after
long training in the narrower fields of the separate states. His sense
of the value of the Union, which had been taught him at the fireside,
from earliest infancy, by the stories of patriotic valor that he there
heard, was now strengthened by friendly association with its
representatives from every quarter.
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