Moderation, especially in the matter of territory, has never been characteristic of democracy. Wherever it has had free play, in the ancient world or… - Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

The North is fighting for no sentimental cause—for no victory of a 'higher civilization'. It is fighting for a very ancient and vulgar object of war—for that which Russia has secured in Poland—that which Austria clings to in Venetia—that which Napoleon sought in Spain. It is a struggle for empire, conducted with a recklessness of human life which may have been paralleled in practice, but has never been avowed with equal cynicism. If any shame is left in the Americans, the first revision they will make in their constitution will be to repudiate formally the now exploded doctrine laid down in the Declaration of Independence, that 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed'.

Now consider the case of the Uitlanders. They are not a minority. They are a majority, but those who differ from them in traditions and race and feeling have the government and have the rifles (cheers), and the result is that the Uitlanders get no votes and bitterly complain that they get no justice. (Cheers.) I have not investigated their grievances; I do not know whether they are correct; but I know it tells what would have been the complaint and sorrow of our Ulster people if we had handed them over to the tender mercies of Home Rule.

There can be no finality in politics.