But at the same time I endeavored to do full justice to the better qualities of the Southern people and to explain how it happened that men otherwise so honorable and brave and humane could be led by the passions of a political warfare and race prejudice to commit such offences.
Hoar attempts to balance criticism of Southern actions with an understanding of their complexities.
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He proceeded to attack, to promote his own ambitions, the fair name and fame of the Commonwealth itself.
There has probably never been a man in our history upon whom so few people looked with indifference.
It will be better for his reputation that the chapter of that history which relates to him shall be written by a historian with a full and clear sense of those faults and infirmities, concealing nothing, and extenuating nothing.
The irrepressible conflict had to be fought out.
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