What does not corrupt a man’s heart cannot corrupt his life, or do him any lasting harm. - Harry Turtledove

Caudell hadn't touched a firearm since he left the army. His hands, he discovered, still knew what to do. The smell of oil and metal and powder that came from the rifle, the sensuously mechanical glide of the charging handle as he pushed it back to expose the open chamber, made him see the army's old Virginia campground almost as vividly as he did the courthouse where he stood. By the murmurs that rose from his comrades, they also had memories flooding back.

A great free people owes to itself and to all mankind not to sink into helplessness before the powers of evil. I ask that this people rise to the greatness of its opportunities. I do not ask that it seek the easiest path.

...the Negro has continued to instruct us as to his capacities. Though the insurrections that so long plagued the Mississippi valley have been reduced to small, scattered outbreaks, the tenacity with which colored men maintained them in the face of overwhelming odds must give us pause if we continue to see those colored men only as the docile servants they appeared to be in days past.
We have tacitly recognized this change, in that many blacks who escaped from bondage during the upheavals of the Second American Revolution remain at liberty, not least, perhaps, be cause, once having tasted freedom, they can no longer safely be returned to servitude. Further, during the war several states relaxed restrictions on what the Negro might be taught, the better to benefit from his intelligent exertions. Once having taught him, one may no longer demand that he subsequently forget.
Yet if the Negro may learn, if he will take up arms in his own defense, if in our hour of peril we contemplated his taking up arms in our defense, where is the justice in leaving him in chains? To do so but exacerbates the risk of servile rebellion and gives our enemies a dagger pointed straight at our hearts. I submit to you, my friends, that emancipation, however distasteful it may appear, exists de facto in large stretches of our territory; gradually acknowledging it de jure will allow us to control its impact upon our nation and will shield us against the excesses we all fear.