Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Chief of the Present Struggle: An Address to the Citizens of Montville, Conn., Delivered in the Congregational Church, July 4th, 1861
The events which have crowded upon us so thickly in the last few months, have wrought' great changes in popular feeling. Not the least of these is found, in the contrasted estimates set upon the expression of patriotism formerly and now. It is not long since Union-saving was spoken of in contempt; now we are all proud to be engaged in such a work. Fourth of July oratory used to be a thing to be laughed at. Our people have grown sick of listening to ?orid declamation on the spirit of 7 6, allusions to the battle fields of the Revolution, extravagant apostrophes to the American Eagle, and exstatic raptures over the Stars and Stripes. Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle it was thought had been pretty well played out; foreign tunes and Opera music were usurping the place of the national airs. So long as the peaceful aspect of affairs confined the patriotism of the nation to mere words, it was esteemed of little worth. It got to be a suspicious commodity for a man to deal in. Any one who invested largely in it was held to be, as a matter of course, an unprincipled politician. A Fourth of July Oration was understood to mean a rhetorical com pound, made up of national boasting in regard to the past and future, and personal vanity and conceit, in about equal proportions, administered to the audience in a shower of words, which seemed quite brilliant, but really meant nothing.
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