"Let us apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will allow (slavery) to be even called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the Free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the Slave States because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!"
Donald, thanks for the quote. I will add it to my library of material for these subjects.
Me, I find it more than almost eerie. Some physical violence is virtually certain. (It's started already, of course.) I don't see it getting as physically violent as the Civil War. But I do see our current social and political structure being altered all out of recognition before this is over. Ten years from now I believe the country--and the world--will look very different.
With the Catholic News sites discussing the Vatican's move to reform the LCWR, I pulled this slim volume written back in 1986 off the shelf to re-read. It's a quick and amusing read: a satirical view of the breakdown and renewal of reli...
I'd never read any Henry James before, though I did see the Nicole Kidman movie adaptation of Portrait of a Lady some years ago because... well, because it was a costume drama with Nicole Kidman in it.
This was one of those novels I ...
If you, like me, have been reared on tales of the second World War as the just and virtuous struggle of the "greatest generation", Evelyn Waugh's arch novels (based loosely on his own war experiences) are an important and darkly enjoyabl...
This was the first time in some years that I've re-read this Austen novel, one of the quieter and shorter ones, but one which has ranked among my favorites. It was striking me, on this pass, that it rather shows the effects of having be...
2 comments:
Some of the parallels are almost eerie.
Here is a quote from Lincoln:
"Let us apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will allow (slavery) to be even called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the Free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the Slave States because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!"
Donald, thanks for the quote. I will add it to my library of material for these subjects.
Me, I find it more than almost eerie. Some physical violence is virtually certain. (It's started already, of course.) I don't see it getting as physically violent as the Civil War. But I do see our current social and political structure being altered all out of recognition before this is over. Ten years from now I believe the country--and the world--will look very different.
LogEyed Roman
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