The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1889-07-25
NATIONAL BIRTH AND LIFE
IMPORTANCE OF MEMORIAL DAYS AND
COMMEMORATIVE INSTITUTIONS.

Analogy Between Nation And An lndi-
viduaI - Nations Cannot he Made by
Statesmen; They Are Born of Circum-
stances-vaIue Of n Vigorous Percentage.
The birthday of a nation is not merely
q figurative expression. Nations are
born as well us men. The very etymol-
ogy of the word nation implies as much.
Social compacts may be declarative OF
their independence, or defnitive Of theiI
existence, but do not create them. In
truth all such compacts and conventions
do in themselves imply q previous nat
ural growth or organization lying nee
essarilv still farther back as the ground
Of any legitimacy they may possess.
There can 10 more be an artificial nation
than an artificial language. Aside from
other influences, all attempts of the kind
must be as abortive in politics as they
have ever been in philology. Nations are
not manufactured, either to order or
otherwise. but born-born of other ma
tons, and nurtured in those peculiar ar
rangements of Gods providence which
are especially adapted to such result.
The analogy between them and indi-
viduals may be traced to almost any ex-
tent They have, in general, some one
event in which there may be discovered
the conceptive principle. or principium,
of their national life. They have their
formative periods. They have their
birth, or the time of their complete sep
aration from the maternal nation to
which they were most nearly and de-
pendently united. They have their strug-
CLING infancy, their youth, their growth,
their heroic period, their iron age OF
hardship and utility, their manhood,
their silver age of luxury and refine
ment, their golden age OF art and sci
ence and literature and their acme; then
come their decline, their decay, their
final extinction, or else their dissolution
into those fragmentary organizations
from which spring up again the elements
or seeds of future nationality.
We need not trace our own history
through each of these periods The in
cipient stages have all been ours, al
though, in consequence Of Il more healthy
and vigorous maternity, we have passed
through them with a rapidity of which
the previous annals of the world present
no example,. Little more than a cen
fury has elapsed since that birth whose
festive natal day is presented in the CAL
sndar of the present month, and yet we
are already nearing the season of man.
W, hox n,
we may justly boast of it as one equaling
III interest and grandeur any similar Pc
Rod in the annals of any older nation.
1t is period which seems designed by
Providence not for itself only, or the
great effect of which it is the immediate
cause, but for its influence upon the
whole aftercurrent of national existence.
The strong remembrance of it becomes
part Of the national life; it enters into
its most common and constant thinking;
it gives Il peculiar direction to its feel
| ing; it imparts peculiar character to its
! subsequent action; it makes it's whole
historical being very different from
what it would have been had there been
! no epic commencement, no such heroic
age. 1t furnishes treasury OF glorious
"reminiscences wherewith to invigorate
! from time to time the national virtue
when impaired, as it ever is, by the fac
tiOus and selfish and unheroic temper
produced by subsequent days of merely
economical or utilitarian prosperity.
! This heroic age must pass away. 1t il
sustained. while it lasts, by special in
tiuences which cannot have place in the
common life and ordinary work Of
humanity. Its continuance, therefore
would be inconsistent with other bene
fits and other improvements Of a more
sober OF less exciting time, but which,
nevertheless, belong to the proper devel
Opmen: OF tho state. The deep effects
however. stil remain. 1t inspires the
| poet and the orator. 1t furnishes tho his
torian with his richest page. 1t tings.
the whole current of the national itera
! turc. In fact, there can De no such thina
- national literature, in its trues
sense; there can be no national poetry
| no true national art, no national music
except as more or less intimately con
Hected '.'ith the spirit Of such II period
! If. In a'eforc. we would be truly 4 ma
ton. wc must have the honored IA
there, ;:IHi the reversd ''olden time" L
! is III some such generation for II common
| glor;na, ..nccatry that political OF
ga,lizatio finds lis deepest root. Me
mortal u. ~ AMI commemorative institu
items are III esseI t!;.l .ie!.lont III the lif,
OF la. -,pui H.. l. u - :<ood and hOl,
tho": /" tlts rt::.,r>i che dead as still