But at a moment like the present, at the close of a ferocious rebellion, when hatred and passion are only pent up and not extinguished, an oath is little better than a cotton thread to hold a frigate scourged by a northwester.
Sumner critiques the fragility of oaths in a time of intense conflict and unrest.
Share
More from Charles Sumner
The only Constitutional party and party of freedom, VII. 38.
Slavery and the: speech in New York, XI. 433.
Opening of United States courts to colored, XI. 389.
Working-men of Europe, desire abolition of war, XVIII. 236.
Other voices in this conversation
