13 would not and could not fight. It was a very natural state of mind for a people who, themselves not largely educated, knew us only at a distance; a people who, trained and grown up in the indolence of absolute power, despised the labor and activity which lay at the foundation of our mechanical, manufacturing, commercial, and educational success. Deeming us ignoble, they supposed us incapable of sentiment, of high mindedness, and of courage. Accustomed to act from whim, from passion, or from will, and so to act vehemently, they had no conception of a principle as supreme above impulse, and holding the passions under curb; of courage, that acted only when it was right and dutiful; of manliness, that was noble and, at the same time, cool. And so in their calculations of relative force, they had fixed it as an axiom, that every Southern warrior bore a quintriple superiority to every Northerner. They have discovered their mistake. They have learned that the valor which is guided by principle is worth twofold the courage of passion. It has that immense repelling power which consists in simply standing still and saying : “You shall not.” It may be as negative and stolid as a granite rock—but the rock has the strength of centuries packed into it; and when the rushing assault comes, alas! for the assailant. His very vehemence is his destruction, liis momentum mea
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