The Danger Is Not That A Particular

Character Is Tested By True Sentiments More Than By Conduct. A Man Is Seldom Better Than His Word.

The Barbarians, Who Possessed No Books, No Secular Knowledge, No Education, Except In The Schools Of The Clergy, And Who Had Scarcely Acquired The Rudiments Of Religious Instruction, Turned With Childlike Attachment To Men Whose Minds Were Stored With The Knowledge Of Scripture, Of Cicero, Of St. Augustine; And In The Scanty World Of Their Ideas, The Church Was Felt To Be Something Infinitely Vaster, Stronger, Holier Than Their Newly Founded States.

There Is No Error So Monstrous That It Fails To Find Defenders Among The Ablest Men. Imagine A Congress Of Eminent Celebrities, Such As More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, Etc. The Result Would Be An Encyclopedia Of Error.

I Saw In States' Rights The Only Availing Check Upon The Absolutism Of The Sovereign Will, And Secession Filled Me With Hope, Not As The Destruction But As The Redemption Of Democracy.... Therefore I Deemed That You Were Fighting The Battles Of Our Liberty, Our Progress, And Our Civilization, And I Mourn For The Stake Which Was Lost At Richmond More Deeply Than I Rejoice Over That Which Was Saved At Waterloo.

A History That Should Pursue All The Subtle Threads From End To End Might Be Eminently Valuable, But Not As A Tribute To Peace And Conciliation.