A Plea for Patriotism
by Benjamin Harrison, Apr. 30, 1889
Have we not learned that not stocks, nor bonds, nor stately houses, nor lands, nor the products of the mill, is our country? It is a spiritual thought that is in our minds. It is the flag and what is stands for. It is its glorious history. It is the fireside and the home. It is the high thoughts that are in the heart, born of the inspiration which comes by the stories of their fathers, the martyrs to liberty; it is the graveyards into which our careful country has gathered the unconscious dust of those who have died. Here, in these things, is that thing we love and call our country rather than in anything that can be touched or handled.
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