Charles Sumner: “How much given for ransom from the pretension to rob a human being of his toil and all its fruits?”

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

I agree with the Convention in the importance of the new organization; nor do I think there are many candid persons, recognizing morals as the soul of all true politics, who will hesitate in this conclusion.

Controlled by such a code, employing such representatives, sustained by such agencies, animated by such Furies, and producing such fruits of tears and bitterness, it must be open to question.

But so long as War exists as an Institution this terrible inconsistency must appear.