caught.

It is one of my many regrets for wasted opportunity that I never heard
Moncure Conway; but, with a view to this address, I have lately read a
good deal of his writings. Especially I have read the _Autobiography_,
an attractive record and commentary on the intellectual history of
rapidly-changing years, most of which I remember. On the question of
peace Moncure Conway was uncompromising--very nearly uncompromising.
Many Americans feel taller when they think of Lexington and the shot
that echoed round the world. Moncure Conway only saw lynchers in the
champions of freedom who flung the tea-chests into the sea; and in the
War of Independence he saw nothing but St. George Washington spearing a
George the Third dragon.[8] He quotes with approval the saying of Quaker
Mifflin to Washington: "General, the worst peace is better than the best
war."[9] Many Americans regard the Civil War between North and South
with admiration as a stupendous contest either for freedom and unity, or
for self-government and good manners. Moncure Conway was strongly and
consistently opposed to it. The question of slavery did not affect his
opposition. He thought few men had wrought so much evil as John Brown of
Harper's Ferry, whose soul marched with the Northern Armies.[10] "I
hated violence more than slavery," he wrote, "and much as I disliked
President Buchanan, I thought him right in declining to coerce the
seceding States."[11] Just before the war began, he wrote in a famous
pamphlet: "War is always wrong; it is because the victories of Peace
require so much more courage than those of war that they are rarely
won."[12] "I see in the Union War," he wrote, "a great catastrophe."
"Alas! the promises of the sword are always broken--always." And in the
concluding pages of his _Autobiography_, as though uttering his final
message to the world, he wrote:

"There can arise no important literature, nor art, nor real
freedom and happiness, among any people until they feel
their uniform a livery, and see in every battlefield an inglorious
arena of human degradation.... The only cause that can
uplift the genius of a people as the anti-slavery cause did in
America is the war against war."

For the very last words of his _Autobiography_ he wrote:

"And now, at the end of my work, I offer yet a new plan
for ending war--namely, that the friends of peace and justice
shall insist on a demand that every declaration of war shall be