Biography and Speeches of William B. Sterling with Memorial Addresses and Resolutions

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W.B. Conkey Company, 1898 - 413 pages

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Page 99 - 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 99 - I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better...
Page 98 - 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 push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
Page 315 - But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Page 367 - It might have been." Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge! God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been...
Page 366 - Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?
Page 240 - I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me : but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
Page 97 - 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...
Page 42 - How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage? All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!
Page 348 - AN honest man here lies at rest, As e'er God with his image blest; The friend of man, the friend of truth; The friend of age, and guide of youth : Few hearts like his, with virtue warm'd, Few heads with knowledge so inform'd : If there's another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this.

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