| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: started from different points: I allude to the Russians and the
Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the
attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly
assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations; and the world
learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same
time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural
limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their
power; but these are still in the act of growth; *r all the
others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme
difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in
circular notes payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it
out, counted it, enclosed it once more in a despatch-box belonging
to Northmour, and prepared a letter in Italian which he tied to the
handle. It was signed by both of us under oath, and declared that
this was all the money which had escaped the failure of the house
of Huddlestone. This was, perhaps, the maddest action ever
perpetrated by two persons professing to be sane. Had the
despatch-box fallen into other hands than those for which it was
intended, we stood criminally convicted on our own written
testimony; but, as I have said, we were neither of us in a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: This horrible business they require shall cease. They want a reconstruction
such as will protect loyal men, black and white, in their persons and property;
such a one as will cause Northern industry, Northern capital, and Northern
civilization to flow into the South, and make a man from New England
as much at home in Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic.
No Chinese wall can now be tolerated. The South must be opened
to the light of law and liberty, and this session of Congress
is relied upon to accomplish this important work.
The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated
at the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law,
one government, one administration of justice, one condition
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