not believe that history supplies any trustworthy data for
casting the horoscope of our war. America is something without
precedent Moreover, such changes have been going on in the social and
moral condition of nations as to make the lessons of even comparatively
recent times of little import in forming conclusions on contemporary
affairs. Formerly a fact, not yet forgetful of its etymology, was a
thing done, a deed, and in a certain sense implied, truly enough, the
predominance of individual actors and prevailing characters. But
powerful personalities are becoming of less and less account, when
facility of communication has given both force and the means of
exerting it to the sentiment of civilized mankind, and when commerce
has made the banker's strong-box a true temple of Janus, the shutting
or opening of which means peace or war. Battles are decisive now not so
much by the destruction of armies as by the defeat of public spirit,
and a something that has actually happened may be a less important
fact, either in conjecturing probabilities or determining policy, than
the indefinable progress of change, not marked on any dial, but
instinctively divined, that is taking place in the general thought.

The history of no civil war can be written without bias, scarcely
without passionate prejudice. It is always hard for men to conceive the
honesty or intelligence of those who hold other opinions, or indeed to
allow them the _right_ to think for themselves; but in troubled
times the blood mounts to the head, and colors the judgment, giving to
suspicions and fancies the force of realities, and intensifying
personal predilections, till they seem the pith and substance of
national duties. Even where the office of historian is assumed in the
fairest temper, it is impossible that the narrative of events whose
bearing is so momentous should not insensibly take somewhat the form of
an argument,--that the political sympathies of the author should not
affect his judgment of men and measures. And in such conflicts, far
more than in ordinary times, as the stake at issue is more absorbing
and appeals more directly to every private interest and patriotic
sentiment, so men, as they become prominent, and more or less
identified with this or that policy, at last take the place of
principles with the majority of minds. To agree with us is to be a
great commander, a prudent administrator, a politician without private
ends.

The contrast betwe