The world never yet beheld such a compound of jobbing, swindling, hypocrisy, and slaughter, as goes to make up the gigantic scheme of villainy called… - Richard Cobden

I'm as much satisfied as ever that we have followed a right course on the war question. It must be right for us, because we have followed our own conscientious convictions. But in proportion as we are devoted to our principles must be our regret to see so little prospect of their being adopted as the practical guide of our foreign policy. It is no use blinking the fact that there are not a score of men in the House, and but few out of the ranks of the Friends in the country, who are ready to take their stand upon the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries. This is no reason why we should hold our peace; but it shows that we have to begin at the beginning, by converting to our views that public opinion which is at present all but unanimously against us.

[T]he principles of political economy have elevated the working class above the place they ever filled before.

The first act of my public life was to publish my views and opinions of the evils under which Ireland laboured, and that subject is one that, amidst all the public questions in which I have been engaged, I have always had deeply and painfully at heart. I know I am taunted by some of my friends with giving a bad vote on this occasion. I shall give a conscientious vote, and if in doing so I am to make personal sacrifices, and lose the good opinion of those with whom I have long acted and have a deep respect for, I shall regret it; but, next to the satisfaction of having acted conscientiously, will be that I shall feel in voting for that which I believe will tend to heal the festering wounds of Irish society.