“They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies;
yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but
that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil.
True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned
against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out
a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an
ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a
Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting
friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men
to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandits’ work under a flag which
bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched
America’s honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail
was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty
in Christendom and 90 per cent of every legislative body in Christendom,
including our Congress and our fifty state legislatures, are members not
only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust.
This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and
justice cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous
thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no
uneasiness; it is all right.”
Now then, that will convince the Person. You will see. It will restore
the Business. Also, it will elect the Master of the Game to the vacant
place in the Trinity of our national gods; and there on their high
thrones the Three will sit, age after age, in the people’s sight, each
bearing the Emblem of his service: Washington, the Sword of the
Liberator; Lincoln, the Slave’s Broken Chains; the Master, the Chains
Repaired.
It will give the Business a splendid new start. You will see.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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