Domestic peace

“ During the past year, also, unbroken peace with all foreign nations, the general prevalence of domestic tranquillity, the supremacy and security of the great institutions of civil and religious freedom, have gladdened the hearts of our people and confirmed their attachment to their Government, which the wisdom and courage of our ancestors so fitly framed and the wisdom and courage of their descendants have so firmly maintained to be the habitation of liberty and justice to successive generations. ”

“ Since, then, the house ought to be the beginning or element of the city, and every beginning bears reference to some end of its own kind, and every element to the integrity of the whole of which it is an element, it follows plainly enough that domestic peace has a relation to civic peace,—in other words, that the well-ordered concord of domestic obedience and domestic rule has a relation to the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and civic rule. ”

“ Beneath its fostering and genial sway, the acceleration of the respective national interests and energies, the reciprocal cultivation of the arts and sciences, the advancement of true religion and benevolence, and the consolidation of domestic happiness, though amongst the most prominent, are but a meagre catalogue of the mutual benefits, which the two neighbouring nations, cannot fail to realize, as the blessings of a permanent peace. ”

“ In other words peace among nations has now become, or is fast becoming, a positive subject of international regulation, while war is coming, among progressive peoples, to be regarded merely as an accidental disturbance of that harmony and concord among mankind which nations require for the fostering of their domestic welfare. ”

“ The security of your wives and daughters from the insults and outrages of a brutal foe shall be established soon, and be followed by a permanent and honorable peace. The claims of home and country, wife and children, uniting with the demands of honor and patriotism, summon us to the field. ”

“ As the idealism of our youth has served world peace, so can it serve the domestic tranquility. ”

“ If he believe the Union can only be preserved by war, let his voice be for war; if by peace, let him counsel peace, as I do, from my heart; if he remain in doubt, let him incline to peace, secure that in so doing he will best obey the teachings of Christianity, the laws of humanity, and the mighty voice that is speaking from the soul of enlightenment, pointing out the errors of the past, and disclosing the secret of human happiness for the future. ”

“ Drawing alike from all sections of the Union for her heroes and her martyrs, depending alike upon north, south, east and west for her glorious victories, and weeping with sympathy with the widows and the stricken mothers wherever they may be, America, incarnated spirit of liberty, stands again to-day the holy emblem of a household in which the children abide in unity, equality, love and peace. The iron sledge of war that rent asunder the links of loyalty and love has welded them together again. ”

“ And then the free peoples of the world must draw together in some common covenant, some genuine and practical coöperation that will in effect combine their force to secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with one another. ”

“ President and Fellow-Citizens:—What the country stands most in need of is a final settlement of the difficulties connected with our civil war. The people of this country want peace—a solid, durable peace. ”

“ With this message of peace and good-will the republic cherishes the hope of being admitted into the family of nations, not merely to share its rights and privileges, but to co-operate in the great and noble task of building up the civilization of the world. ”

“ It is as he gazes that the revelation of the meaning of a civil and domestic war comes home to him, a war in which not only men of the same race, the same nation, the same clan, but those of the same family and household stand upon opposite sides. ”

“ The past and the present, the present and the future, stability and unrest, blind obedience and personal freedom, aristocracy and democracy, have been and are perpetually at war with each other. Every political revolution that has widened the circle of democracy, every industrial movement that has affected large classes of workers, every modification of national ideals of education, every social change that has shifted the relations of classes to each other, every barrier between nations that has been broken down or that has been put up, has changed the problem of domestic service. ”

“ In the same way, we will maintain friendly and honorable relations with all our neighbors and look forward to the day when peace and security will be maintained by mutual consent and by the collective conscience of mankind. ”

“ And the people of America are permitted to show their loyalty and patriotism by subscribing for bonds—bonds of the rich and powerful United States—that all may participate in our noble struggle for the salvation of democracy and the peace of the world. ”

“ RESOLVED, That, with the daily accumulating proofs of the desolation and woe which mark the existence of civil war, we earnestly invoke the God of love and peace again to dispose the hearts of all the people of the United States to obedience to lawful authority, to fidelity to the Constitution and laws, and to the fraternal love and peace which in other years united them as fellow citizens and sharers of a once happy and prosperous but now deeply afflicted country. ”

“ That simple and beautiful thing, minding our own affairs and leaving our neighbours to mind theirs, is unhappily not possible for allies. Neither is a keen and common desire for peace a sufficient basis for agreement. Peace must have terms, and terms require a basis of their own—justice, reason, and the limited gains which are based on mutual concessions. ”

“ We have, therefore, consistently followed the policy of establishing friendly contacts with every nation, convinced that in international relations, friendship, goodwill, and the spirit of helpfulness are not only the most economic and lasting sources of power and influence but the surest guarantees of security and universal peace. ”

“ Our object is peace, not only with the North, but with the world. All matters relating to the public property, public liabilities of the Union when we were members of it, we are ready and willing to adjust and settle upon the principles of right, equity, and good faith. ”

“ Surely, not only this copy in the text, but the wormwood and the gall of our civil combustions and wars, which our souls may have in remembrance to our dying day, and be humbled within us, may powerfully persuade us to a cheerful engagement of ourselves, for the preservation of a firm peace and union between the kingdoms, to all posterity. ”

“ An entire and perfect Union will be the solid foundation of lasting peace: It will secure your religion, liberty, and property, remove the animosities amongst yourselves, and the jealousies and differences betwixt our two kingdoms. It must increase your strength, riches, and trade ”

“ It seems to me that our spirits have been borne up to meet those of the dead and glorified, and that from this place we shall go to our homes more resolutely set in our purpose as citizens to conserve the peace and welfare of our neighborhoods, to hold up the dignity and honor of our free institutions, and to see that no harm shall come to our country, whether from internal dissensions or from the aggressions of a foreign foe. ”

“ Would there be no danger of their being flattered into neutrality by specious promises, or seduced by a too great fondness for peace to decline hazarding their tranquillity and present safety for the sake of neighbors, of whom perhaps they have been jealous, and whose importance they are content to see diminished? ”

“ The hundreds of thousands of maimed and crippled loyal men who fought and suffered beside comrades who, fighting, fell to establish peace and protection, are earnestly asking the question. Thirty-eight million inhabitants in these United States whose prosperity can only be commensurate with the maintenance of peace and protection, all join in prayerfully asking the question. The countless lovers of freedom throughout the whole world with one accord are looking to this nation and anxiously asking the question. ”

“ But, take my word for it, there are things we prefer to peace, they are the honor of our wives, our daughters and sisters, our dignity, our independence, the right of ourselves and through ourselves to administering the affairs of our city. ”

“ They pledge themselves also, in the interest of good and sincere relations between the two peoples in the future to solve amicably the various territorial controversies on the basis of the principles of nationality and of the right of peoples to decide their own fate, and in such a way as not to injure the vital interests of the two nations, as they shall be defined at the moment of peace. ”

“ By working together with the leaders of other nations, we have been able to build a new hope for lasting peace--for a structure of world order in which common interest outweighs old animosities, and in which a new generation of the human family can grow up at peace in a changing world. ”

“ We can be grateful that peace at home is strengthened by a growing willingness to common counsel. We can be grateful that our peace with other Nations continues through recognition of our own peaceful purpose. ”

“ Have we made peace within ourselves and in our homes? Have we made peace in that territory over which we preside? Is the same unanimity of feeling, the same union, the same singleness of purpose developed within us, as individuals and families, that marks the action and the conduct of this great people when the public safety and the interests of the people require effort? When labour is to be performed or sacrifice to be made, and it is called for, is it made? ”

“ It would converge into one powerful focus the efforts of all states sincerely seeking to make the great conception of universal peace triumph over the elements of trouble and discord, and it would, at the same time, cement their agreement by a corporate consecration of the principles of equity and right whereon rest the security of states and the welfare of peoples. ”

“ It has come, come in its completeness, and with the pride and inspiration of these days of achievement quick within us, we turn to the tasks of peace again,-a peace secure against the violence of irresponsible monarchs and ambitious military coteries and made ready for a new order, for new foundations of justice and fair dealing. ”

“ And the further civilization and the connections between different people proceed with this development, the more necessary and, at the same time, possible it becomes to raise the interests and sentiments which would hold them together above those which would keep them asunder, and to thus found a policy of reciprocal equity and of peace in place of a policy of hostile precautions and continual strife. ”

“ It has been my constant aim and desire to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations. Tranquility at home and peaceful relations abroad constitute the true permanent policy of our country. War, the scourge of nations, sometimes becomes inevitable, but is always to be avoided when it can be done consistently with the rights and honor of a nation. ”

“ But it began with the establishment of universal peace, which was demanded by the growing spirit of brotherly love, and assisted by commercial reciprocity and a world language. Gradually national boundaries were found to be only an annoyance, and in time—a long time, of course—we became one nation and finally no nation. ”

“ It would little become us to verify the predictions of those who ventured to prophesy that peace, instead of blessing us with happiness and tranquillity, would serve only as the signal for factions, discord, and civil contentions, to rage in our land, and overwhelm it with misery and distress. ”

“ They must make the Cause of Peace the object of general consultation, and seek by every means in their power to establish a Union of the nations of the world. They must conclude a binding treaty and establish a covenant, the provisions of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to all the world and obtain for it the sanction of all the human race. ”

“ For this peace, which will unite by the bonds of friendship two great nations, already connected by esteem, we are indebted to the valour and wisdom of the heroic pacificator, to the wise administration of the government, to the bravery of our invincible armies, to the good understanding subsisting between all the constituted authorities, and, above all, to that spirit of moderation which has known how to fix limits to victory itself. ”

“ The peoples, who in consequence of the success, the sincerity, and the noble-mindedness of this superb coalition had conceived such esteem for their leaders and such attachment to them, and now perceive how they have forgotten what they solemnly promised—justice, order, peace founded on the equilibrium and legitimacy of their possessions—will end by losing their affection and withdrawing their confidence in their principles and their promises. ”

“ We must strive to make the peace one of justice and righteousness and to throw out such safeguards around it as will give us the greatest possible chance of permanency. Then we must turn to setting aright the affairs of our own household. ”

“ Our realists are going to discover some day to their astonishment that the “practical” policy they are seeking, the policy that will bring security with justice and peace, is this very policy of audacious friendliness functioning through appropriate machinery. We can climb up to peace in no other way. ”