“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Gentlemen, those confederate flags and our national standard are what has made this union great. In what other country could a man who fought against you be permitted to serve as judge over you, be permitted to run for reelection and bespeak your suffrage on Tuesday next at the poles.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)