Oration delivered before the city authorities of Boston, on the fourth of July, 1863 / by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Oration delivered before the city authorities of Boston, on the fourth of July, 1863 / by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![and the dread of their oppressors wherever it is spoken ; the heroic Garibaldi % But even when it is granted that the war was in- evitable ; when it is granted that it is for no base end, but first for the life of the nation, and more and more, as the quarrel deepens, for the welfare of man- kind, for knowledge as against enforced ignorance, for justice as against oppression, for that kingdom of God on earth which neither the unrighteous man nor the extortioner can hope to inherit, it may still be that the strife is hopeless, and must therefore be abandoned. Is it too much to say that whether the war is hopeless or not for the North, depends chiefly on the answer to the question whether the North has virtue and manhood enough to persevere in the contest so long as its resources hold out 1 But how much virtue and manhood it has can never be told until they are tried, and those who are first to doubt the prevailing existence of these qualities, are not commonly themselves patterns of either. We have a right to trust that this people is virtuous and brave enough not to give up a just and necessary contest before its end is attained, or shown to be un- attainable for want of material agencies. What was the end to be attained by accepting the gage of bat- tle] It was to get the better of our assailants, and](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21129265_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
