Walter Stahr

“The duty of Republicans in the current crisis, he told them, was “simply that of magnanimity. We have learned, heretofore, the practice of patience under political defeat. It now remains to show the greater virtue of moderation in triumph.” Americans of different parties, he said, “are not, never can be, never must be, enemies, or even adversaries. We are all fellow-citizens, Americans, brethren.”3”
― Walter Stahr, Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man

“Political parties were new and still slightly suspect, and some people disliked their constant conflict. One of the Auburn papers lamented, after the close of a campaign, that “politics are the only species of warfare that admits of no cessation of hostilities. There is reason to fear that the frequency of elections in this country, connected with the bitterness and asperity with which they are conducted, have produced a belligerent state of feeling.”
― Walter Stahr, Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man