If these men could have been silenced, our brothers had not died.
Who are the persons that use this argument? They are the very ones who
are at the present moment most zealous in maintaining the right of free
discussion. At a time when every power the nation can summon is needed
to ward off the blows aimed at its life, and turn their force upon its
foes,--when a false traitor at home may lose us a battle by a word, and a
lying newspaper may demoralize an army by its daily or weekly
stillicidium of poison, they insist with loud acclaim upon the liberty of
speech and of the press; liberty, nay license, to deal with government,
with leaders, with every measure, however urgent, in any terms they
choose, to traduce the officer before his own soldiers, and assail the
only men who have any claim at all to rule over the country, as the very
ones who are least worthy to be obeyed. If these opposition members of
society are to have their way now, they cannot find fault with those
persons who spoke their minds freely in the past on that great question
which, as we have agreed, underlies all our present dissensions.
It is easy to understand the bitterness which is often shown towards
reformers.
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