The teachers were all convalescent soldiers from the hospitals, moving noiselessly about among the benches in their hospital slippers and cheap calico wrappers—as they themselves had often seen moving about among their hospital cots the angels of mercy from the North.
Reid describes the teachers as convalescent soldiers, drawing a parallel to angels of mercy.
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They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action.
Ordinarily the simple performance of duty is so blessed of God, that men who live in the doing of it, are the best off, in all respects, even in this world.
May it not prove, moreover, in that work of reorganization, which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the…
It is my firm conviction, that suffrage is not only the best security for freedom, but the most potent agent of amelioration and civilization.