Various

“ The strength of the people has been put forth, through the Government—their blood has been profusely poured out, for the sole purpose of maintaining its legitimate ascendency, and of overthrowing and removing the obstacles opposed by the hand of treason to its constitutional action. To uphold the supremacy of the Constitution and laws, is the very object of the war; and it would be a gross perversion of the authority conferred and a palpable misuse of the means so amply provided by Congress, to use them for the purpose of defeating the very end intended to be accomplished. ”

“ He created Music, the only universal language, holding the keys of Memory, and wearing the crown of Hope. Angelo, strange architect in that dim domain of chaos, thy creation, fleeting, invisible, and unembodied, is in perpetual, flow; changeful as the play of clouds, yet stable as the eternal laws by which they form their misty towers, their glittering fanes, and foam-crested pinnacles! Trackless as the wind, yet as powerful, thy sweet spirit, Music, floats wherever beats the human heart, for Rhythm rocks the core of life. Music nerves the soul with strength or dissolves it in love ”

“ Let us reverently thank him that he has favored the general march of our arms toward the sacred end of our exertions—the defeat of the daring attempt against the unity of our national power and the integrity of our free institutions. Not always in human affairs has the cause of right and freedom prevailed. In the gradual development of human society, as unfolded in the lapse of long ages, the oppressor has generally triumphed, and history has full often been compelled to record the failure of the noblest efforts, and the downfall of the most righteous designs conceived for the benefit of man. ”

“ They may recognize the right, aye, the duty of the Executive to act in accordance with other methods than those prescribed for ordinary seasons, in cases where the national security demands this.
But this is not an abandonment of the methods and forms of law! This is not the establishment of an arbitrary government! This is not passing from freedom to despotism! The people of this country are sovereign, let it be repeated. So long as its Government is conducted as its people or as the majority of them wish, it is conducted in accordance with its established principle. ”

“ Language is man's expression of the finite, with its infinite meanings modified by the extent of his intelligence and his power of expression. It is truly a universal possession, but every man gifts it with his own individualities, his own idiosyncrasies. The style, one might almost say, is the man.
Thus the imagery of language finds its base in the very essence of our being. The poet is one gifted to seize upon these hidden analogies, to read these mystic symbols, and, through the force of his own imagination, to reveal them to his brethren in truth and love. ”

“ Forgive us if we have loved life too well; we have always felt that the rhythmed pulse of our own hearts throbbed but in obedience to Thy tuneful laws! Loving our fellow men, we have labored to awake them to a sense of Thy tenderness, O Creator of Love and of Beauty, so unsparingly casting the ever-new glories around them! Father, we have loved Thee in thy glorious creation.
"For Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things that thou hast made, for thou didst not appoint or make anything hating it. ”

“ I regret that I know only by report the scenes of Eden-like loveliness of this delightful parish. It is principally devoted to grazing, and its pastures are maintained in a park-like perfection. Grassy eminences, crowned with woods, and covered with herds of horses and the handsome Jamaica cattle, descend, in successive undulations, to the sea. Over these, from the deck of a vessel a few miles out, may be seen falling the silver threads of many cascades. Excellent roads traverse the parish, which is inhabited by a gentry in easy circumstances, and by a contented and thriving yeomanry. ”

“ The Executive stands in the same relation to the nation. The Mohammedans relate that the road to heaven is two miles long, stretching over a fathomless abyss, the only pathway across which is narrower than a razor's edge. Delicately balanced must be the body which goes over in safety! The intangible path which the Executive must walk to meet the people's wishes on the one side, and to avoid their fears upon the other, in the national peril, is narrower than the Mahommedan's road to heaven, and cautiously bold must be the feet that safely tread it! ”

“ The outraged Life retreats before it to its last citadel, and the indignant heart, upon its entrance, refuses to throb more. The citadel is taken; but the secret of Life is not to be discovered in the kingdom of Death. It is because Music is essentially a living art that we find it impossible to read the mystery of its being. If Painting touch us, we can always trace the emotion to its exciting cause; if we weep over the pages of the Poet, it is because we find our own blighted hopes imaged there. But why does Music sway us? ”

“ The malignant envy of all the instruments of despotism throughout the whole civilized world were brought to bear against us for the accomplishment of a work of stupendous ruin—the annihilation of American nationality, American power, and American freedom. All the bad, restless, retrogressive elements of our own population sought alliance with the foreign enemies of human liberty; and, for the most selfish and detestable of all social and political schemes, attempted to prostrate the paternal government of their country, before the expiration of the first century of its unexampled career. ”

“ Cities may be rebuilt, desolated fields made to bloom again with prosperity, and commerce may return to its old channels with even increased activity and volume. Many wounds may be healed, and may separations may be brought to an end by the renewal of friendships broken by the war; but the separation of the slave from his mater, so far as it has been caused by any action of the Government, can never be remedied. That must be an eternal separation, resting for its security upon the humanity as well as the honor of the American people. ”

“ In North America the principle of equal rights and of unobstructed individual progress has become the fundamental law of society. It is needless to trace the origin and growth of this principle; but its operation has been so powerful and productive, so fully imbued with moral and intellectual power, so solid and safe as a basis of national organization, as shown in the marvellous history of the United States, that no uncongenial principle is capable of resisting it, or even of maintaining an existence by its side. ”

“ Why does the harp of David soothe the insanity of Saul? Is not its festal voice too triumphant to be the accompaniment of our own sad, fallen being; its breath of sorrow too divine to be the echo of our petty cares? All other arts arise from the facts of our earthly existence, but Music has no external archetype, and refuses to submit her ethereal soul to our curious analysis. 'I am so, because so I am,' is the only answer she gives to the queries of materialism. Like the primitive rock, the skeleton of earth's burning heart, she looms up through the base of our existence. ”

“ Between these two unreasonable and contradictory alternatives—the right of the Government to change its forms, and the right of the rebellious State to assume its place in the union without conditions—there must be some middle ground upon which both parties may stand securely without doing violence to any constitutional principle. The Federal Government is clothed with power, and has imposed upon it the duty, to conquer the rebellion. This is an axiom in the political philosophy of every true Union man, and we therefore do not stop to argue a point disputed only by the enemies of our cause. ”

“ The angels left them as they entered the primeval night of chaos, the shoreless ocean between the sensuous and spiritual life. For alone with God through chaos do we arrive at the sensuous body; alone with God in chaos do we leave this body of corruption, from which is evolved the Body of the Spirit, 'glorious and unchangeable.' And again is clasped the thread of Identity, on which are strung the pearls of memory, and the Past and Future of Time become the Eternal Present! ”

“ I no longer find pleasure in my reading; my work is tedious to me, and not so well executed as formerly; the future occupies my mind much more than the present; in short, I am in a constant state of excitement, as if awaiting some great event. Since the visit of the prince and princess I have an entirely different opinion of myself, and I am by no means so happy as I was before....In truth, I no longer understand myself.
Sunday, March 24th.
Ah! God be praised, my suspense is over, and we leave day after to-morrow for Warsaw. ”

“ They have betrayed their people into a situation from which they cannot reasonably hope to escape without making important concessions to the Federal Government. Their effort now is to convince the misguided population of the South that the required concessions will be more intolerable than the indefinite continuance of a hopeless and destructive civil war.
There is no necessity, however, to go beyond the limits of the Constitution; nor is there any reason to believe that the Government, in any event, will be disposed to exact terms inconsistent with the true spirit of our institutions. ”

“ Hence there is in every word set down by the Imagination an awful undercurrent of meaning—an evidence and shadow upon it of the deep places out of which it has come.
In this it utterly differs from the Fancy, with which it is often confounded.
Fancy sees the outside, and is able to give a portrait of the outside, clear, brilliant, and full of detail. The Imagination sees the heart and inner nature, and makes them felt; but in the clear seeing of things beneath, is often impatient of detailed interpretation, being sometimes obscure, mysterious, and abrupt. ”

“ They struggled to awake the sleeping powers of men to a perception of the glories of creation; to lead them 'through nature up to nature's God.' The Artist-Brothers were closely united in feeling, striving through different mediums to refine the soul of man.
For the spirit of Beauty always awakens the spirit of Love, sent by God to elevate and consecrate the heart of man!
Of a more subtle genius and more daring spirit than Zophiel or Jemschid, Angelo boldly launched into the bewildering chaos of the realm of sound. ”

“ The fact that we raise armies to secure obedience commonly enforced by the ordinary civil officers is a virtual and actual acknowledgment that a new order of things has arisen for which the usual methods are insufficient, civil authority inadequate, and to contend with which powers must be exercised not before in vogue. Codes of procedure arranged for an established and harmoniously working Government cannot answer all the requirements of that Government when it is repudiated by a large body of its subjects, and the existence of the nation itself is in peril. ”

“ The plan of creation is far too vast to be embraced in its complex unity by the finite: it is the province of art to divide, condense, concentrate, reunite, and rearrange the vast materials in smaller frames, but the new work must always be a whole. Angelo aroused and excited the emotions of the soul, which Zophiel analyzed and described in words most eloquent; while Jemschid made clearer to his brethren that Beauty of creation which is an ever visible proof of the love of God. ”

“ If an individual be suspected of conspiring against his country, at such a time, to leave him at liberty while the usual processes of law were being undertaken, would perhaps give him opportunity for consummating his designs and delivering the republic into the hands of its enemies. If a portion of the press circulate information calculated to aid the foe in the defeat of the national armies, to endeavor to prevent this evil by the slow routine of civil law, might result in the destruction of the state. ”

“ Every banking association whose bonds are deposited in the treasury of the Union; every individual who holds a dollar of the circulation secured by such deposit; every merchant, every manufacturer, every farmer, every mechanic, interested in transactions dependent for success on the credit of that circulation, will feel as an injury every attempt to rend the national unity, with the permanence and stability of which all their interests are so closely and vitally connected. ”

“ It also explains to us that it was the good friar's unconscious affection for Juliet, the pure sympathies of a lonely but loving heart, which so imprudently induced him to unite the unfortunate young lovers. The men and women of Shakspeare live and love, and we cannot think of them without at the same time thinking of those with whom they lived and whom they loved. Indeed, when we can wrest any character in a drama from those which surround it, and study it apart, the unity of the whole is but apparent, never vital. ”

“ For the true essence of man, made in the image of God, is also Love!
The artists turned not from the rose-cheek of the maiden, nor refused the touch of the ruby lip; but they loved her too well to sully by one wronging thought the tender confidence of perfect innocence, or cause her guileless heart a single pang. For womanhood was holy in their sight! ”

“ We will be compelled to consider not only the duty which the Government owes the people, in the matter of their own permanent security, but also the obligations it has assumed, the promises it has made, and the hopes it has excited in the bondsmen of the rebellious States. There must be good faith toward the black man. It would be infamous to have incited him to escape from slavery only to remand him again, upon the restoration of the Union, to the tender mercies of his master. ”

“ Freedom means freedom to act, in all cases and under all circumstances, so as to secure the highest individual and national well-being. It does not mean freedom to establish certain codes of procedure under certain regulations, and to be forever bound under these when the preservation of liberty itself demands their temporary abeyance. So long as the Government fulfils the wishes of the people, it is not arbitrary, it is not despotic, no matter what methods an emergency may require it to adopt for this purpose, or in what manner it ascertains these wishes ”