It sometimes seemed as if Sumner thought the Rebellion itself was put down by speeches in the Senate, and that the war was an unfortunate and most annoying, though trifling disturbance, as if a fire- engine had passed by.
Hoar critiques Sumner's perspective on the Civil War, suggesting a disconnect between rhetoric and reality.
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This Treaty would make us a vulgar, common place empire, controlling subject races and vassal states, in which one class must forever rule and other classes forever obey.
It would have been a worse civil war than that of the Rebellion, because the country would have been divided not by sections, but by parties.
Certainly if he had performed the promise of his boyhood he would have been one of the foremost men in American literature.
Judge Hoar never doubted that the service of a clean, able, upright Circuit Court, appointed without political influence, and entirely acceptable to the public, was well worth the sacrifice.
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