It was no further from the compromises of 1850 to the repeal of the Missouri bill in 1854, than it was from the annexation of Texas in 1845 to the co… - George William Curtis

While we read history we make history ... Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they can not conquer.

'Don't be visionary', shouted trade and the spiritual blindness which is absurdly called practical common sense, 'morals have nothing to do with politics'. 'Don't talk of injustice. In this world we must compromise. Compromise is the very essence of government'. So it is, if you do not attempt to compromise moral principle. 'All government', says Edmund Burke, 'is founded upon compromise and barter'. 'But in all fair dealings the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel of the soul'. And what is and always has been the immediate jewel of our national soul if it be not the equal rights of men? Compromise equal rights in the United States? Whittle a crowbar? How do we like it, as the boys say, as far as we have got? You may compromise questions of cotton and com, but you cannot long compromise a point of conscience. Moral principles are absolute and eternal. You may stretch an inch of India rubber to cover your hat; you cannot stretch a diamond the shadow of a hair.

Mister Toombs was willing to dissolve the Union to save slavery, Mister Phillips, to save liberty; while Mister Seward, denounced and derided by both, declared that the deepest instinct of the American people was for union. Reserved rights. State rights, limited powers, the advantages of union and disunion, were the cucumbers from which we were busily engaged in distilling light, overlooking the fact of nationality in discussing the conditions of union. We were speculating upon costume. We gravely proved that the clothes were the clothes of a woman, or of a child, without seeing that whatever the clothes might be there was a full-grown man inside of them. 'The Constitution is a contract between sovereign States', shouted Mister Toombs, 'let Georgia tear it and separate'. 'The Constitution is a league with hell', calmly replied Mister Phillips, 'let New York cut off New Orleans to rot alone'. 'Oh, dear! it's a dreadful dilemma', whimpered President Buchanan. 'States have no right to secede, and the United States have no right to coerce. Oh, dear me! it's perfectly awful! I'm the most patriotic of men, but what shall I do? what shall I do?' Separate! Cut off! Secede! It was of a living body they spoke, which, pierced anywhere, quivered everywhere.