American and English Studies, Volume 2

Front Cover
Smith, Elder & Company, 1913 - Education
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 25 - In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.
Page 22 - A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will...
Page 110 - Gentlemen may cry: Peace, peace! — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
Page 174 - Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade — I see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves. Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine— Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
Page 13 - DEAR MADAM : I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.
Page 33 - With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive...
Page 167 - Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state ? Yes — one — the first — the last — the best— The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but One !
Page 174 - Must we but blush? — Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead ! Of the three hundred grant but three. To make a new Thermopylae!
Page 59 - What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Page 31 - If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Bibliographic information