The foreboding statesman who knew how Greece had fallen asunder and perished, who knew the mean tenure of European leagues, who knew the absolute nec… - George William Curtis

What is our reckoning, then? How far are we towards Cathay? What advantages has the 'Good Fight of Man' gained in the war? We have shown, first, that a popular government, under which the poorest and the most ignorant of every race but one are equal voters with the richest and most intelligent, is the most powerful and flexible in history. It is proved to be neither violent nor cruel nor impatient, but fixed in purpose, faithful to its own officers, tolerant of vast expense, of enormous losses, of torturing delays, and strongest at the very points where fatal weakness was most suspected. 'If you put a million of men under arms you will inevitably end in a military despotism', said Europe. 'The re-absorption of an army is the most perilous problem of any nation'. And within six months of the surrender of Lee an English gentleman, Sir Morton Peto, found himself in a huge business office in Chicago, surrounded by scores of clerks quietly engaged with merchandise and ledgers. 'Did you go on so during the war?' he asked. 'Oh, no, Sir Morton. That young man was a corporal, that was a lieutenant, that was a major, that was a colonel. Twenty-seven of us were officers in the army'. 'Indeed!', said the English gentleman. And all Europe, looking across the sea at the same spectacle, magnified by hundreds of thousands, of citizens quietly re-engaged in their various pursuits, echoes the astonished exclamation, 'Indeed!' for it sees that a million of men were in arms for the very purpose of returning to their offices and warehouses to sell their merchandise and post their ledgers in tranquility. Yes, the great army that for four years shook this continent was only the Yankee constable going his rounds.

The debate forced upon the mind of the country this question. Does the Constitution, made at the time we know, by the men we know, holding the views we know, for the distinct intention it declares, stultify itself by securing the destruction of its expressed purposes?

And, on the other hand, the Greek Leonidas choking the pass against the Persian torrent, the Italian Galileo holding fast his scientific faith in the teeth of the Church of Rome, Robert Small steering his bold boat under the guns of slavery straight towards the flag of freedom, Abraham Lincoln patiently saving civil liberty, are all, in their times and countries, soldiers of the true cross, heroes and martyrs of the Good Fight.