Civil conflict

“ A civil war breaks the bands of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, which consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. ”

“ For we often lamented, between ourselves, the misfortunes which hung over the State, when we discovered the seeds of a civil war in the insatiable ambition of a few private Citizens, and saw every hope of an accommodation excluded by the rashness and precipitancy of our public counsels. ”

“ Arbitrary power, military and ecclesiastical, was stamped upon their education, upon their habits, and upon all their institutions. Civil dissension was infused into all their seminal principles. War and mutual destruction was in every member of their organization, moral, political, and physical. ”

“ It should seem, to my way of conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide difference in reason and policy between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order within the State, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. ”

“ An idea seemed to be entertained that all that was necessary to constitute a war was organized hostility in the district of country in a state of rebellion — that conflicts on land and on sea — the taking of towns and capture of fleets — in fine, the magnitude and dimensions of the resistance against the Government — constituted war with all the belligerent rights belonging to civil war. ”

“ When I see this country in danger of being plunged into all the countless miseries of civil war—a war, in which, whatever be the blue, the blood of its best inhabitants mull probably flow, I cannot help pausing a while, and seriously asking this important question—Who are the parties in this ruinous contest, and what is the source of their quarrel? ”

“ Of all Wars, a Civil War is the most dreadful; in which Countrymen shed the Blood of their Countrymen, Children rise up against their Fathers, and those of the same House are divided against each other; Laws are silent, Justice banished, and Violence is unstrained. ”

“ Social dissolution is accelerated by provincial revolts against central authority; by survival struggle between the empires which were coordinated and consolidated into the civilization; by revolt in the subordinate and dependent segments of the civilization; by rivalry and conflict between racial, cultural and political sub-groups forced into the civilization, held there by coercion, policed by armed force and taking the first opportunity to win political independence and self determination. ”

“ Moreover, the policy with which an administration charged with the duty of maintaining itself and preserving the Union shall conduct a civil war, must be confined always to the existing condition of political forces, and to the public sentiment of the whole country. ”

“ Civil war, at all times lamentable, appears peculiarly so when the cause of it lies in haughtiness and distrust. We have found however that, beneath the surface, there may have been elements of division and ill-will serious enough to require this painful remedy. ”

“ When, indeed, we consider the undeniable fact that great social changes are generally effected through the agency of excited multitudes and highly stimulated parties, we shall not be surprised at the result so often exhibited in history. That result shows bloody civil wars instead of peaceful arrangement; faction instead of patriotism; and an oscillation between feverish extremes, instead of a well-calculated balance of social forces. ”

“ For thirty years the sounds of war had been silent in our domain, but justice demanded that we interfere in behalf of a people who are struggling against oppression, and in the noble cause of humanity. ”

“ So revolt followed cruelty and oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties, and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious nature of civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same undeviating picture of misery and crime. ”

“ You perceive I do not propose to seize the ordinary State or city revenue, as that, in my judgment, would be to make war on civilization, as no community can {246}escape absolute anarchy without civil government. ”

“ For when men, by entering into society and civil government, have excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property, peace, and unity, among themselves; those who set up force again, in opposition to the laws, do rebellare, that is, do bring back again the state of war, and are properly, rebels,’ as the author shows. ”

“ They disclaim every idea of imbruing their bands in the blood of their fellow-citizens, or entering into a civil war among themselves, at all times; but more especially at so critical a period as the present, conceiving such a step to be highly impolitic and dangerous. ”

“ Unfortunately, in time of civil war, besides the great exigencies which arise to threaten the commonwealth, innumerable lesser evils gather like flies about an open wound, to annoy, irritate, and kill. ”

“ That we will, on every occasion, exert ourselves, on the first appearance of Tumult, or Disorder, to maintain the public peace, and to act in support of the civil authority, for suppressing all Riots, and for bringing the promoters of them to legal punishment. ”

“ To conduct this offensive and defensive war against the proletariat a public force was indispensable: the executive power grew out of the necessities of civil legislation, administration, and justice. ”

“ The most thoughtless saw that a furious civil war would infallibly occur, unless some plan could be devised for adverting so terrible a calamity; and men, high in power, of all parties, and themselves secretly inclining either to Baliol, or Bruce, or Hastings, resolved, if possible, to lay aside their mutual differences, and to agree upon some measure for preserving the public peace. ”

“ Every sensible man knows that the civil war is over, and that the exigencies of a great public danger which brought forth the necessity of exceptional measures for the salvation of the Republic and the protection of the loyal people, have ceased to exist. ”

“ In the case of a rebellion or resistance of a portion of the people of a country against the established government, there is no doubt, if in its progress and enlargement the government thus sought to be overthrown sees fit, it may by the competent power recognize or declare the existence of a state of civil war, which will draw after it all the consequences and rights of war between the con ending parties as in the case of a public war. ”

“ If broken irretrievably, the alternative is to be divided, or for one part of the country to coerce its neighbors and brethren. This we find to be extremely inconvenient and really impracticable without civil war ”

“ It seems to be an understood regulation, that whatever may be the workings within, nothing shall disturb the serenity of the surface, so that even in time of civil war, when factions and party spirit are at their height, and the deepest hatreds are cherished, the external quiet of society remains unmolested. ”

“ Coming so swiftly, sweeping from anarchy to anarchy, from one excess to another, passing from bloodshed to bloodshed, from civil war to international strife, from democracy to tyranny, it stunned Europe into a stricken silence. ”

“ The political history of a nation, when it merges into armed strife, is generally a record of prejudices and of passion: civil war is the result. In this work the author deals not with causes, but with the terrible events that spring out of them ”

“ A territory of our government is now convulsed with violence and discord, and the whole family of our nation is in a state of exitement and anxiety. The national executive power is put in motion, the army in requisition, and congress is invoked for interference. ”

“ When the animosities of faction are thus awakened at home, and the pretensions of freedom are opposed to those of dominion, the members of every society find a new scene upon which to exert their activity. ”

“ The sense of a common danger, and the assaults of an enemy, have been frequently useful to nations, by uniting their members more firmly together, and by preventing the secessions and actual separations in which their civil discord might otherwise terminate. ”

“ The institution has in all ages been clung to with the tenacity of death; clung to until it sapped and destroyed the foundations of society; clung to until all law became violence; clung to until virtue was a thing only of history; clung to until industry folded its arms—until commerce reefed every sail—until the fields were desolate and the cities silent, except where the poor free asked for bread, and the slave for mercy; clung to until the slave forging the sword of civil war from his fetters drenched the land in the master's blood. Civil war has been the great liberator of the world. ”

“ Imagine them to find the National capital occupied by eager crowds clamoring for the public offices as the hireling soldiery of past centuries may have clamored for the booty of a town taken by assault. ”

“ Having thus considered every kind of civil society in itself, we shall compare them, so as to note their relations one with another; great and small, strong and weak, attacking one another, insulting one another, destroying one another; and in this perpetual action and reaction causing more misery and loss of life than if men had preserved their original freedom. ”

“ So it is with those whose lives and fortunes and earthly interests are under the protection of the same civil institutions; if they become divided into angry and adverse factions, under the dominion of unrestrained passions, they invite the spoiler to undermine the foundations of the fortress which shelters and protects them. ”

“ The conflict within threatens to engulf the society in self-war, group against group. The vital traditions may be lost—not merely altered or reformed, but completely destroyed in this period of chaos and anarchy. ”

“ This is the next state to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression: a conflict wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of young men grown and growing up. ”

“ Government is necessary to defend communities from miseries from within themselves; from the prevalence of intestine [Pg 107] discord, mutual injustice and violence; the members of the society continually making a prey one of another, without any defence one from another. ”

“ These acts of civil war, and disgraceful outbreaks of criminal anarchism, were justified by persons who professed a conscientious objection to defending their homes and families against a foreign invader. ”

“ You then believe, and again express the opinion, that the peculiar nature of the contest is such that its loss is almost inevitable, and lest any pretext for a charge of injustice against the Government be given to its enemies, you propose to extend to the people of those States standing by the Union, the choice of payment for their Slaves or the responsibility of loss, should it occur, without complaint against the Government. ”

“ In all quarters the civil society of this country is becoming honeycombed through and through by disintegrating forces—in some States by the violation of contracts and the repudiation of debts; in others by open resistance and defiance ”

“ Still, it was by the conflicts of rulers that the great nations have been formed out of a chaos of struggling clans; that peace and order, therefore, have been substituted for violence, throughout broad territories; that law has taken the place of private war; moreover, that the privileges of selfish orders have been suppressed through the development of a larger and more civilised national organisation ”

“ They can see intestine discords, our government disorganized, our wrongs aggravated, multiplied, and un-redressed, peace with dishonor, or war without justice, union, or resources, in 'the calm lights of mild philosophy.' ... ”

“ From war results that other great evil, seen in the administration of the internal concerns of each country; the government being of necessity entrusted, [Pg 85] for the defence of the people, with the power of the sword, the people are governed by the sword of power. Hostile prejudices, the strife of interests ill understood, false judgments, and the jargon of languages mutually unintelligible, fears, suspicions, and precautions perpetuate the evil of disunion when the work of havoc and desolation is suspended. ”