Of course there would be a quote like that from a famous person. The postcard creators, the office poster inspirationalists have to get their material from somewhere!

I have thought and written a lot about the dualities there: love-hate, good-evil, light-dark, friends-enemies, war-peace. "Friends and enemies," blah-blah-blah, there must be hundreds of posts on this blog that start out with that. I have thought, "What if I didn't have any enemies?" Have you ever thought of that? What if everybody liked you, all you had was friends? Literally, I get chest tightness when I think of that, It almost makes me gasp. I would feel so worthless, so empty. You have to have enemies, that's where one of those dualities comes in: If you do not have enemies, you do not have friends. (suitable for framing). How would you know the difference? They are to a significant extent defined by each other. In Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s. morally monochromatic world everybody in a uniform with a gun from 1861-65 was a "brother." Shooting at you? Doesn't matter. Shooting with you? Doesn't matter.

The world of Holmes, Abbott, Humphreys and McClellan is one in which the strongest human emotions are devalued. In its place this Gang of Four substitutes unemotion. That is their test of manhood! Being shot at? Twirl your sword on your finger as if you are in a dress parade. Ride out ahead of your troops and prance about with your sword in the air. Deny yourself the primordial human emotion of fear. Since emotion is one-half of what makes us human, we come full circle: they devalued human life. If you cannot say that you HATE slavery, you are denying yourself that measure of what defines you as human.

We are their heirs. "I do not know what truth is" (said Holmes). "We believed that slavery had lasted long enough," said Holmes also. Long enough! Professor Rorty: "Is 'Slavery has always been wrong' a statement consistent with your and Holmes' philosophy of pragmatism?" (actual challenge put to Rorty.).

Hate is the equal of love among human emotions in intensity. Yet hate is the ultimate four-letter word today. Put yourself in 1861 with today's speech restrictions. "I hate slave owners." Dude, that would get your ass censored under today's rules: hate speech. It would be considered hate speech for being overly broad. "Sir, you are generalizing about an entire class of people. We do not permit expression of such sentiments toward an entire class of identifiable persons all of whom live next to each other and who have just seceded from the country." "Wanna kill slaveowners."  That statement would get your ass prosecuted. Ask John Brown.