To “establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity”: such are the declared objects of the Constitution, which must be kept present to the mind as we read its various provisions.
Sumner outlines the foundational objectives of the Constitution that should guide its interpretation.
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As the Brotherhood of Man is practically recognized, it becomes impossible to restrict the feeling within any exclusive circle of country, and to set up an unchristian distinction of honor between civil war and international war.
But so long as War exists as an Institution this terrible inconsistency must appear.
It is a cause which, though long kept in check throughout our country, as also in Europe, now confronts the people and their rulers, demanding to be heard.
They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
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