_humane_ at a time when affairs on our side wore the
most flattering appearances. My veneration is as
high, my friendship as warm, and my attachment as
great as ever it was for many characters among you,
though I have differed much from them in politics.
In the justness of the reasoning which led to the
principles that have guided me through life, I
can suppose myself mistaken. The same thing may
have been the case with my opponents. Our
powers are so limited, our means of information
so inadequate to the end, that common decency
requires we should forgive each other when we have
every reason to think that each has acted honestly.

"Sure I am, this is the case with me and I hope
it is the same with some of you. My conduct during
this unhappy contest has been invariably uniform.
I can in no sense be called a traitor to your
state. I never owed it any allegiance, because I
left it before it had assumed the form or even the
name of an independent state, and when I neither
saw or felt any oppression. I must have been mad
as well as wicked to have acted any other part than
I did upon the principles I held. If I have been
mistaken I am sorry for the error, and if it be error
I still continue in it."

This letter is certainly a good illustration of the
truth that, in all great contests, perfectly honorable

[[149]]

p148 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p149w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p150

v?