red
to see "the old flag" floating over a united people, he restored the new
banner to its place time after time when it had been cut down by shot
and shell.

[Note: For Pericles' budget, see Thuc. 2, 13.

Thuc. 1, 141: [Greek: ten auten dynatai doulosin he te megiste kai
elachiste dikaiosis apo ton homoion pro dikes tois pelas epitassomene.]]

Those who were bred in the opposite political faith, who read their
right of withdrawal in the Constitution, had less heart-searching to
begin with than the Union men of the South; but when the State called
there were no parties, and the only trace of the old difference was a
certain rivalry which should do the better fighting. This ready response
to the call of the State showed very clearly that, despite varying
theories of government, the people of the Southern States were
practically of one mind as to the seat of the paramount obligation.
Adherence to the Union was a matter of sentiment, a matter of interest.
The arguments urged on the South against secession were addressed to
the memories of the glorious struggle for independence, to the
anticipation of the glorious future that awaited the united country, to
the difficulties and the burdens of a separate life. Especial stress was
laid on the last argument; and the expense of a separate government, of
a standing army, was set forth in appalling figures. A Northern student
of the war once said to me, "If the Southern people had been of a
statistical turn, there would have been no secession, there would have
been no war." But there were men enough of a statistical turn in the
South to warn the people against the enormous expense of independence,
just as there are men enough of a statistical turn in Italy to remind
the Italians of the enormous cost of national unity. "Counting the cost"
is in things temporal the only wise course, as in the building of a
tower; but there are times in the life of an individual, of a people,
when the things that are eternal force themselves into the calculation,
and the abacus is nowhere. "Neither count I my life dear unto myself"
is a sentiment that does not enter into the domain of statistics. The
great Athenian statesman who saw the necessity of the Peloponnesian war
was not above statistics, as he showed when he passed in review the
resources of the Athenian empire, the tribute from the allies, the
treasure laid up in the House of the Virgin. But when he addressed the
people in justification