Apostle of Union Quotes

“If uncertain of that Union’s future, Everett was confident that the Revolutionary heritage was the key element in its cement.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“The work of scholars who have shown how postbellum Americans marshaled the idea that the Civil War was about union to achieve North-South reconciliation for whites only has likely contributed to the souring of professional historians on what Gallagher calls the Union Cause.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“It is hard for modern observers when encountering historical compromises over slavery to imagine them as anything but a compromise between ultimate good (freedom) and evil (slavery) and Northern conciliators as anything but morally flawed.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“At one extreme, in his initial speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, he denied that slavery was wrong and pledged to strap on his knapsack and help the white South put down any slave rebellion in its midst.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Everett scholar Ronald Reid’s survey of 260 newspapers throughout the Union states showed that editorial comments emphasized Everett’s speech over Lincoln’s.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“if I could flatter myself, that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Everett’s stature as an orator and statesman, and in particular his association with commemorations at vital American historical sites, meant he was the unanimous choice of all seventeen Union state governors whom the organizing committee consulted.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“A few months later, Everett followed up with another missive repeating the argument that while this war may not be an abolitionist one on the Union’s part due to constitutional restraints, it was a proslavery one on the Confederacy’s part.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Everett’s quick conversion to the war cause after Sumter was just as typical of the North as had been his confusion during the secession winter.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Given a few days to contemplate it, the firing on Fort Sumter had cut through what had been a tangle of painful questions and a thicket obscuring who bore responsibility for thrusting them on the country.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“For all these reasons, compromise failed during the secession winter. Thus the essential question for the United States became whether the majority of Northerners who had proved unwilling to vote for straight Unionism in 1860 would be willing to kill and die for that Union.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“The idea of civil war accompanied as it would be by servile insurrection is too monstrous to be entertained for a moment.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“the great responsibility of the women of a Republic.” They would not seek to “transcend their heaven-appointed limits, and come forward to mingle in public affairs, which could only restrict their influence—but they should never forget that they are, and are to become, the mothers and educators of our rulers and statesmen”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Everywhere he had traveled he found that Americans “have their sectional loves and hatreds, but before the dear name of Washington they are all absorbed and forgotten”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“All interest in every other topic” seemed to be “eaten up” by the slavery question.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“But in truth, these masses had more than cotton profits in their souls. Especially in light of the failure of the European revolutions of 1848, many Americans understood the global stakes involved should their republican Union fail.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“If we accept the abolitionist portrait of Northern Unionists, we are left to wonder how many cotton merchants there really were in the North!”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“He thus rejected union versus abolition as a false choice and adopted as his pseudonym the rather wordy but telling “A FRIEND OF THE UNION, AND AN ENEMY OF SLAVERY.”34”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“One of the tragic patterns of Everett’s life was that he detested controversy but repeatedly placed himself in the middle of some of the great Massachusetts, American, and Anglo-American controversies of his lifetime.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Everett found to his chagrin that questions that appeared minor gained incredible staying power and significance from even the most tenuous connection to slavery.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“The moral he drew from the story of ancient slavery in 1836 was that Christianity’s benevolent influence had almost imperceptibly and with the spirit of love abolished slavery.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Only by demonstrating that men could govern themselves in amicable union could Americans fulfill “our destiny in the world.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“the Union of these States—Monarchs form alliances—Republics form leagues—but here, behold a band of brothers.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“Vilifying opponents “is too much the practice of many of our sects and parties.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“This defense of the rule of law and painting disunion as a nightmare scenario would become central themes in Everett’s career.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“The single cause to which Everett was perhaps most committed throughout his congressional term was resisting Indian Removal”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“of earlier thoughts, as he claimed it was. His horrified fascination with slave revolt and race war was a constant, in private as well as in public speeches.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“A war to end slavery seems more compelling” to twenty-first-century Americans and far less abstract than a war for union.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

“This book is dedicated to my wife and daughters, for whom I would willingly buckle a knapsack to my back and march anywhere.”
― Matthew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett