War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.
War is not merely justifiable, but imperative upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare.
In America, we want a peaceful planet. We want people to be able to enjoy their lives and know they're going to have a bright and prosperous future, not be at war. That's our purpose.
War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave Them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us, and delivered us, bound, to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
No State, upon it own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally nothing. I therefore consider that the Union is unbroken. There needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless forced upon the national authority.
The source of peace is within us; so also the source of war. And the real enemy is within us, and not outside. The source of war is not the existence of nuclear weapons or other arms. It is the minds of human beings who decide to push the button and to use those arms out of hatred, anger or greed.
All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, a chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. And every chapter must be translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God's hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall live open to one another
There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this.