Pope Pius IX

“ Take every pains, besides, to cause the people and their chief rulers seriously to reflect on the grievous evils with which they are afflicted, and which are the result of civil war, the direst, most destructive and dismal of all the evils that could befall a people or nation.
Never omit to admonish and exhort the people and their supreme rulers, even in our name, that, with conciliated minds, they would embrace peace, and love each other with uninterrupted charity. ”

“ But since we, by virtue of the office of apostolic ministry, embrace, with the deepest sentiments of charity, all the nations of the Christian world, and, though unworthy, administer here on earth the vicegerent work of Him who is Author of Peace and the Lover of Charity, we cannot refrain from inculcating again and again, on the minds of the people themselves, and their chief rulers, mutual charity and peace. ”

“ Amongst the various and most oppressive cares which weigh on us in those turbulent and perilous times, we are greatly afflicted by the truly lamentable state in which the Christian people of the United States of America are placed by the destructive civil war broken out amongst them. ”