Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/120

Rh at home and the fighting armies in the field. In the light of history we can see that by this edict Mr. Lincoln gave slavery its vital thrust, its mortal wound. It was the word of decision, the judgment without appeal, the sentence of doom."&mdash; and.

"Between conquerors? no; the primary and secondary rights of patricians or plebeians? no; races? no; utilities? no; climates? no; aliens? no: but between citizens, whom the commonwealth has created. It is a question of the absolute duty of political society, through positive law, to restrain unconscionable invasions by the majority, which is now absolute in power, and capable of the greatest tyranny to the minority, because of a strong division prevailing throughout the province."&mdash;.

"By this salutary sign, the genuine type of fortitude, I have liberated and freed your city from the slavish yoke of the tyrant; and have set at liberty the Senate and people of Rome, restoring them to their pristine splendor and dignity."&mdash;.

"I have descended into the field to which the narratives of our historians invited me, and there seen the actions of men and of states in energetic development and violent collision : of the clang of arms I have heard more than I can tell; but nowhere have I been shown the majestic form of the Judge who sits umpire of the combat."&mdash;.

"Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding. It dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant, accommodates itself to the meanest capacities, silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and at length argued them out of all their liberties."&mdash;.

"Let us have peace."&mdash;.

"My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, nor indisposed me to serve them; nor, in spite of failures which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge, or of the present aspect of affairs, do I despair of the future. The truth is this; the march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient, the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble, the life of humanity is so long and that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope."&mdash;.