Newark Daily Mercury, June 15, 1861

The war which is now upon us is not altogether an evil. It has, indeed, prostrated many interests, and a long train of horrors will attend its progress, but it will develope also great and wholesome good. It is strengthening greatly the heroic element of our national life, and teaching the people the priceless value of our institutions—inspiring them moreover, with a deeper reverence for law as the great essential shield against wrong-doing and oppression. Whatever this war may cost of life and treasure, it will be cheap if it shall vindicate and establish forever the capacity of man to govern himself, thus encouraging the world to new and greater reaches toward the goal of perfect freedom. As a nation, we were growing careless of our rights and indifferent to the value of integrity and principle, both in the public Administration and in our personal life, and a shock was needed to rouse us from our stupor and revive in our hearts an appreciation of those primal virtues which form the surest defence of a people. Better that there should be ten thousand graves filled in this war than that the honor and stability of the Government should be overthrown—better that the land be put in mourning over clear ones lost in a noble contest for the preservation of our rights, than that it should be called to mourn over a surrender of everything dear and precious in our character as a nation. And though war marches under a bloody banner, if it brings a "restoration of old paths" and fills the soul of the people with patriotic purpose and a greater love for truth and justice, it will be after all a blessing in disguise and should as such be welcomed.