The parties to the Conflict were not rival nations, but compatriots of
the same flag; joint inheritors of the English Common Law and the ideals
of liberty consecrated by centuries of heroic struggle; descendants of
an ancestry knit in political sympathy by their successful battle for
independence from the Mother Country, and the achievements by which they
made their new-born nation great; children of Puritan and Cavalier,
Quaker and Huguenot; Dutchman and Catholic-Frenchman; men of strong
individual and community traits, accustomed to rule and untutored in the
art of surrender.