He met his father with a clear, simple, modest, but extremely able statement of the other side; pointed out the harmlessness of such exhibitions when well conducted, and that the strictness which confounded innocence and purity with guilt and vice was itself the parent and cause of vice.
Hoar reflects on the importance of presenting a well-reasoned argument in the face of opposition.
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But I confess I like to leave on record, if I may, some evidence which will contradict the charge so constantly made by critics near home, that I am a man of intense partisan and personal bitterness.
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.
I am afraid they have of late yielded for a time to one strong temptation and missed an opportunity for still greater glory, that never will come back.
There has probably never been a man in our history upon whom so few people looked with indifference.
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