Political Quotes

On the record
A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be astonished how such a thing could have been.
Said by
Charles Sumner
Massachusetts

Editor's note · Context

Sumner predicts a time when weapons of war will be seen as relics of a barbaric past.

Share

More from Charles Sumner

In this contest, we may borrow from the ancient Greek, who, when his hands were cut off, fought with his stumps, and even with his teeth.

gutenberg.org

Nay, more,--if it would be criminal in these several clusters of States to reëstablish the Institution of War as Arbiter of Justice, then is it criminal in the Commonwealth of Nations to continue it.

gutenberg.org

They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.

gutenberg.org

Again I repeat, so long as the War System prevails under the sanction of International Law, these painful incongruities will be apparent.

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation