James Walker

“ How often are we to be told that our present troubles are sent upon us in order to lift the whole community out of the mire of money-getting propensities, where every thing like public spirit was in danger of being swallowed up and lost? ”

“ Do these men think that by altering their opinion of right they can alter the nature of things, or make wrong come out right in the great and solemn issues which are before us? We stand where their own great men stood in the best days of the republic. As regards the leading rights and interests at stake, our consciences are but the echo of the conscience of the Christian world. The fathers of the Revolution, one and all, are looking down with sorrow and indignation on this attempt to break up and destroy their work. ”

“ A blow is struck at the free institutions which they had inherited from their ancestors; immediately a new spirit reveals itself, and all Europe rings with the story of their heroic daring and suffering. ”

“ Read the history of what has been done in this commonwealth, in this city, during the last twenty-five years for humanity, for education, for science and the arts, for every form of public use or human need, and then say, if you can, that public spirit has been dying out. Our people have never been otherwise than public spirited, and hence the promptness and unanimity of their response to this new call to public duty. ”

“ There is a natural jealousy of wealth, especially when it takes the form of a passion for accumulation, which demagogues and fanatics know how to use for bad ends. One of the incidental benefits resulting from a great national struggle is, that all these social misunderstandings and heart-burnings are suspended, are healed. The people see and feel and acknowledge that a real title to nobility is found, not in wealth itself, but in wealth generously and nobly bestowed.
Others are manifesting their public spirit by sacrifices of time and labor. ”

“ Hence also our confidence in it,—not as an excitement merely, which a day has made, and a day may unmake, but as an expression of character.
Let us, however, be just to the excitement itself, considered as the sudden and spontaneous uprising of a whole community to sustain the government. We need [5] demonstrations of this kind, from time to time, to reassure us that all men have souls. It is worth a great deal merely as an experiment, on a large scale, to prove that the moral and social instincts are as much a part of human nature as the selfish instincts. ”

“ The sacrifices which the country asks for in time of war are those of property, labor, and life; and she does not ask in vain.
We are continually reminded that this rebellion has taken place at a moment of great national prosperity, to blast it all. The sacrifices of property, in a thousand ways, must be immense; every man, however, from his diminished fortune, is "ready to distribute," and [8] "not grudgingly or of necessity." His public spirit makes him love to give. I doubt whether it is common for rich men to think any better of themselves merely because they are rich ”

“ In every soul that lives there is an untold amount of latent energy and public spirit which only waits for the occasion to call it forth. Read the history of the Netherlands,—a people made up, for the most part, of merchants and manufacturers, of traders and artisans, growing rich and apparently thinking of little else. ”

“ There are many things in the present aspect of our public affairs to fill us with regret and anxiety, but a gleam of light shines through the cloud. Every man and woman and child will be moved to act more unselfishly, more nobly; life will cost more, but it will also be worth more. ”

“ To the student of history it is no new thing that a whole community should be given over "to believe a lie,"—not the less mad, because all mad together. The process by which this state of things is brought about is always substantially the same. Egotism, vanity, disappointed ambition, sectional jealousies, a real or supposed interest or expediency induce them to wish that a wrong course were the right one. They try to convince themselves that it is so, and all such efforts to sophisticate the conscience, if persisted in, are punished by entire success. ”

“ Our people have no love for fighting, as a pastime; let it, however, become a serious business, and they will show that their veins are full of the blood that flowed so freely in other days.
These are some of the ways in which a people may manifest their public spirit, and in which our people are manifesting it now. "With such sacrifices God is well pleased." ”

“ Human nature, if it has fair play, will never lead a single individual to think less of a privilege or blessing, merely because it has cost more. When has religion interested men the most, and the most generally? Precisely at those times when men were religious at the greatest sacrifices. Indeed, it is on this principle that we explain the decay of a proper love of country among us for the last twenty or thirty years ”

“ In times of ease, and abundance, and tranquillity, the public takes care of itself. There are few sacrifices on the part of individuals for the public good, because there are few occasions for such sacrifices. ”

“ Not a little of what passes for loyalty or patriotism in other countries is blind impulse, growing out of mere attachment to the soil, or the power of custom, or a helpless feeling of dependence on things as they are. ”

“ It is extremely difficult to do justice to this human nature of ours,—capable at once of such mean and little things, of such noble and great things. There is, however, one distinction which all, I suppose, will accord to it: I mean its tendency to rise up and meet great emergencies. ”

“ But there can be no doubt as to the end. A struggle has been forced upon us by a doomed people, if the laws of nature do not fail, if there is any meaning in the moral sentiments of mankind, or any justice in heaven. ”

“ The necessity for making sacrifices would seem to be founded in this: as we cannot have every thing, we must be willing to sacrifice some things in order to obtain or secure others. Wicked men recognize and act upon this principle. Can you not recall more than one person in your own circle of acquaintances who is sacrificing his health, his good name, his domestic comfort, to vicious indulgences? ”

“ Thus the stop to be put to war is to be expected, not so much by chaining down those irrepressible instincts which lead men to resist wrong, as by eradicating the disposition to do wrong. Wars will cease when all men are Christians, and perfect Christians ”

“ Nevertheless, it can do no good to begin by overvaluing ourselves, or undervaluing our enemies. We know that the behests of a righteous Providence will be accomplished, but we do not know in what way. It is more than probable that in the troubles and distractions which have come upon the country we ourselves have something to answer for. ”

“ By striking at the principles of all constitutional and free government, and this too avowedly for the purpose of founding society on the servitude of an inferior race, on whose toil the more favored races are to live, they have put themselves in opposition to the settled convictions and the moral sense of good men all over the world. ”

“ Men are ready to offer up not only their money and their labor, but also their lives. Are you afraid that your sons and brothers will be cowards merely because they are not duelists? because they have never been engaged in a street-fight? ”

“ We expect that Christian mothers, with hearts bleeding for their country, and bleeding for their children, will say, "It is the will of God that they should go," and, furthermore, that they will go, having always been taught at home that there are many things worse than death. ”

“ But is it well, or right, or tolerable, in times like these, to look round for side motives, when the motive avowed is reasonable and probable? I believe, as I believe I live, that many who never knew what it is to work before, are ready to thank God for the chance they now have to live to some purpose. ”

“ By constitution, by habit, by circumstances, our people are intensely active; and this activity, for want of other objects, has been turned into the channels of material prosperity. If, therefore, you merely affirm their excessive eagerness in acquisition, I grant it ”

“ They seem to be of one mind; their religious men appeal with confidence to the righteous [11] Judge; their women are working day and night to help forward the cause. If it were a mere question of interest, or passion, or prejudice between us and them, it might be said that one side is as likely to be self-deceived as the other. ”