The American Spirit in Literature : a chronicle of great interpreters

An Alexander Hamilton may urge with passionate force the adoption of the Constitution, without any firm conviction as to its permanence. The most clear-sighted American of the Civil War period recognized this element of uncertainty in our American adventure when he declared: "We are now testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure". More than fifty years have passed since that war rearmed the binding force of the Constitution and apparently sealed the perpetuity of the Union.