Of course we do not mean to defend all the measures of the Houses.  Far from it.  There never was a perfect man.  It would, therefore, be the height of absurdity to expect a perfect party or a perfect assembly.  For large bodies are far more likely to err than individuals.  The passions are inflamed by sympathy; the fear of punishment and the sense of shame are diminished by partition.  Every day we see men do for their faction what they would die rather than do for themselves.

Scarcely any private quarrel ever happens, in which the right and wrong are so exquisitely divided that all the right lies on one side, and all the wrong on the other.  But here was a schism which separated a great nation into two parties.  Of these parties, each was composed of many smaller parties.  Each contained many members, who differed far less from their moderate opponents than from their violent allies.  Each reckoned among its supporters many who were determined in their choice by some accident of birth, of connection, or of local situation.  Each of them attracted to itself in multitudes those fierce and turbid spirits, to whom the clouds and whirlwinds of the political hurricane are the atmosphere of life.  A party, like a camp, has its sutlers and camp-followers, as well as its soldiers.  In its progress it collects round it a vast retinue, composed of people who thrive by its custom or are amused by its display, who may be sometimes reckoned, in an ostentatious enumeration, as forming a part of it, but who give no aid to its operations, and take but a languid interest in its success, who relax its discipline and dishonour its flag by their irregularities, and who, after a disaster, are perfectly ready to cut the throats and rifle the baggage of their companions.

Thus it is in every great division; and thus it was in our civil war.  On both sides there was, undoubtedly, enough of crime and enough of error to disgust any man who did not reflect that the whole history of the species is made up of little except crimes and errors.  Misanthropy is not the temper which qualifies a man to act in great affairs, or to judge of them.

“Of the Parliament,” says Mr. Hallam, “it may be said I think, with not greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three public acts of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of political wisdom or courage, are recorded of them, from their quarrel with the King, to their expulsion by Cromwell.”  Those who may agree with us in the opinion which we have expressed as to the original demands of the Parliament will scarcely concur in this strong censure.  The propositions which the Houses made at Oxford, at Uxbridge, and at Newcastle, were in strict accordance with these demands.  In the darkest period of the war, they showed no disposition to concede any vital principle.  In the fulness of their success, they showed no disposition to encroach beyond these limits.  In this respect we cannot but think that they showed justice and generosity, as well as political wisdom and courage.