Political conflict

“ 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 has stirred up all the bitter contests of the last thirty years, and plunged the country into the bloodiest civil wars, and it will do so again unless we at last cut out and eject this prolific abomination from our political system. ”

“ This principle being acknowledged, and party opinion being buried, in theory at least, at the foot of the altar of the Government de facto, whence is it that at this time creeps into our council chambers, our political cliques, our social haunts, our market places, ay, our most sacred tabernacles—a spirit adverse to the principles for which we are fighting, laboring for, and dying for? Let us—a people anxious for peace on honorable grounds, anxious for a Union which no rash hand shall ever again attempt to destroy—look, with a moment's calm reflection, at this alarming evil. ”

“ Blind obedience to party fiat; the division of the people of one great political family into hostile camps; subjection of the public interest to partisan advantage; placing the badge of party servitude above the crown of American sovereignty—the ridiculous oriflamme of foolish division above Old Glory's star-gemmed promise of everlasting unity—have brought the first nation of all world to the very brink of destruction. ”

“ Here, then, were a handful of men repudiated by their king, cast off by their commercial partners, a prey to the consequences of civil war at home, and living by sufferance in the midst of a fierce and warlike people, compelled at last to work out their own political destiny. ”

“ These points being settled, the public mind may henceforth rest in the assurance that the period of the rebellion is indeed a thing of the past; that the existence of the Government and the legitimate results of the war are no longer in jeopardy, whatever political party may carry the elections, and that the American people can, without fear of any darkly lurking danger, give themselves to the discussion of questions of political ethics, or of administration, or of political economy, treating them upon their own proper merits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Have not our modern states, again, in nearly every case been founded on conquest, and are not the actual institutions of government in great measure the direct result of such conquest, or, where revolutions have intervened, of violence which has been as little governed by any conception of general good? ”

“ We have to choose between two lines of policy, represented by two parties—the one fully appreciating the tendency of the movement, and resolutely following the call of the times; fully and honestly determined to achieve the great object of preserving the Nation, and with consistent energy using every means necessary for that purpose; striking the rebellion by crippling the strength of the traitors, and restoring loyalty by stopping the source of treason; a party, not infallible indeed, but inspired by the noblest impulses of the human heart, and impelled by the dearest interests of humanity ”

“ One of the greatest dangers, he said, that could befall the country, would be 'a state of things in which the comparatively harmless antagonism of parties would be replaced by the far more serious and dangerous war of classes. ”

“ What kind of power can the democratic opposition mobilize that will be sufficient to destroy the dictatorship and its vast military and police networks? The answers lie in an oft ignored understanding of political power. ”

“ Enough, and more than enough, debate has been already held on the complicated motives which have blended in your war, as in all other human concerns, and on the occasional acts of questionable spirit which must inevitably attend the public policy and sentiments of a nation engaged in deadliest conflict and bleeding at every pore. ”

“ Political intrigues, constant rivalries, a total absence of all public spirit, and of the pursuit of objects which patriotic minds would wish to accomplish, the hatred of races, the animosities of rival religions, and, above all, the absence of any controlling power that could keep these large districts in anything like order—such were the sad truths, which no one who has investigated the subject could resist for a moment. ”

“ Religious and political differences had caused disunion between man and man, had banished mutual confidence and social intercourse, and raised up those feuds and hatreds, which destroy domestic peace, and retard public improvement. ”

“ To menace the Legislature with hordes of the lowest of our people—to stop traffic and commerce—desecrate the Sabbath, and double the work of the Police Courts on the following day is called 'Peaceful agitation,' To copy the faults without the experience of foreign nations is deemed—'Political wisdom'—To assault principle after principle of our noble constitution, the accumulated wisdom of our forefathers, is regarded as the true characteristic of a 'Friend of the People. ”

“ The unscientific character of a policy adopted at any crisis has often been an exact measure of the amount of external pressure applied through the competition of factions, or through the impetuosity of a populace only jaded into an unwonted attention to political affairs by exceptional events. ”

“ How often political groups, torn by internal dissensions, have faced the alternative of war against others, which might either cause domestic quarrels to be forgotten, or might on the contrary aggravate them beyond reconciliation! ”

“ They reserve them for combats with their equals, thus realising the salutary arrangement, which might have such practically important political consequences if adopted in human affairs, "Let those who make the quarrels be the only ones to fight." ”

“ It is a law and requisite of civilized existence that men live in political continuous societies, forming organized units called states or nations, whose constituents bear, enjoy and suffer, advance and retrograde together, in peace and in war. The citizen or native of hostile country is thus an enemy, as one of the constituents of the hostile state or nation, and as such is subjected to the hardships of war. ”

“ Political governments, and the prejudices which have been created and nurtured by these governments, have set individuals and nations in battle array against each other, without any good or substantial reason whatever. ”

“ A demoralization of public sentiment more than ever fatal to public justice and eventually to public order and peace; unscrupulous struggles for the possession of power to be used in the exploitation of opportunities without regard to the rights of the defeated—that is, alternating despotisms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Everybody considered that Government as the enemy of the people. Extreme Monarchists and Socialists, the united nobility, labour groups, Grand Dukes and half-educated soldiers—all were of the same opinion. I do not intend to examine the activities of the Government which led to the Revolution, its struggle against the people and against representative institutions. ”

“ The political part of the tragedy is not destitute of interest; developing the misery of fraternal wars, the division of sovereign power, each contending for dominion, and closing in the dissolution of all government, by the despair of a people. ”

“ A weight of public opinion among the people for such a period, uniformly thrown into one scale so strongly, and so decisively, in the midst of all the extraordinary changes of parties, the events of peace and of war, and the trying conflicts of public policy and state interests, is perhaps unexampled in the history of all other free governments. ”

“ Democratizing effects of political defiance In contrast to the centralizing effects of violent sanctions, use of the technique of nonviolent struggle contributes to democratizing the political society in several ways. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unexpected collisions of interest or passion or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not make for peace. ”

“ 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.' ... ”

“ Let the Party be which it will, tis Destruction even to themselves, to run up all their Niceties and all their Scruples to the Extremes. Every Dispute becomes a Feud, every Spark a Flame, every word a Blow, every Blow, a Civil-War, and by this Intestine Confusion of Principles, Backt with the Passion and Fury of Men, this unhappy Nation is Subdivided into an Infinite Number of Parties, Factions, Intrests and seperate Opinions. ”

“ It has shown the danger and folly of plunging a great country into a national conflict for narrow and selfish purposes, because, under such circumstances, the people will be divided, and it will be a partisan, and not a patriotic war ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who stood by, constituting much the larger proportion of the representative men of the nation, and observed the growth of the conflict between the two extremes, without stepping in to control the situation, place it altogether in the light of a great national blunder or crime. Had the circumstances been controlled by this large third party, the 32first proposition would have been true, and yet the war have been prevented. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even without decided advantage on either side, the simultaneous exhaustion of military and financial resources of the belligerents, the intervention of large capitalists, existing pressure upon the head of some neutral State, the inquietude of politicians fearing the electoral effect upon their parties, will hasten the end of the conflict. ”

“ The parties of the old regime see the day of this inevitable conflict approaching, and strive to prepare for it by half-hearted plots and counterplots, jesuitical, monarchical and military, but without energy, without hope and without combination in which alone there is strength. ”

“ One scheme of government after another is lifted up to be cast down—tyranny, oligarchy, slavery, commercialism, communism, parliaments, theocracies. The great warriors and the great statesmen are alike entombed in the ruins of their empires. ”

“ The process by which a scattered democracy decided its own will, in a matter so serious as a great and perhaps fatal war, was new to the world; bystanders were surprised and amused at the simplicity with which the people disputed plans of war and peace, giving many months of warning and exact information to the enemy, while they showed no sign of leadership, discipline, or union, or even a consciousness that such qualities were needed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Great are the effects of party rancour, and if the battle is fought on merely party grounds, and the Lords are to be the instruments of achieving the victory, the Whigs and Radicals will forget their [199] THE CABINET RESIGNS. present bickerings and mutual topics of grievance and discontent, and bury their animosities in a common determination to resist and defeat their political antagonists. ”

“ Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor my vote. ”