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The Meaning of the Civil War: An Address Delivered at the Chicago Historical Society, April 12, 1961

Book by Bruce Catton · 1 quotes · American Civil War, Freedom, Immigration

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The Meaning of the Civil War: An Address Delivered at the Chicago Historical Society, April 12, 1961 Quotes

“The Civil War was ABOUT something. It was fought FOR something. And—let us never for a moment forget it—it WON something. Under everything else, the war was about Negro slavery. It was fought for freedom—and if ever anything was worth fighting a war for, freedom was and is the cause. . . . And that is why the Civil War is worth remembering. It gave us a broader freedom, and it laid upon us the obligation to live up to that freedom and to make it unlimited, for everybody. Freedom is indivisible. Winning it for the Negro, we won it also for all of the people who then were or ever would become Americans—for the man who has fled from oppression, misery and discrimination overseas as well as for the fugitive from the American slave pen and auction block. We can never have, permanently, a second-class citizenship in this country; because of the Civil War, we are no longer that kind of country. We might just as well stop trying to find a comfortable middle ground between the ideas of Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler. There simply isn't any such place.”

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Book:The Meaning of the Civil War: An Address Delivered at the Chicago Historical Society, April 12, 1961
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