As if war was a matter of experiment! As if you could take it up or lay
it down as an idle frolic! As if the dire goddess that presides over it,
with her murderous spear in hand, and her gorgon at her breast, was a
coquette to be flirted with! We ought with reverence to approach that
tremendous divinity, that loves courage, but commands counsel. War never
leaves where it found a nation. It is never to be entered into without
mature deliberation; not a deliberation lengthened out into a perplexing
indecision, but a deliberation leading to a sure and fixed judgment.
When so taken up, it is not to be abandoned without reason as valid, as
fully, and as extensively considered. Peace may be made as unadvisedly
as war. Nothing is so rash as fear; and the councils of pusillanimity
very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils
from which they would fly.