Arguments through the ages

Editor's note: Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) is best known as the author of the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, she conceived of a Mother's Day dedicated to peace. She recalled later that the war "seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed. The question forced itself upon me, 'Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?' " S

Editor's note: According to some reports, the first recorded case of biological warfare occurred in 1346, when Mongols laying siege to a Crimean city catapulted corpses contaminated with plague over the walls. Whether the plague traveled by engines of war or by trade ships, once it reached Europe it spread rapidly; in a few years the Black Death killed as many as 25 million people, or about a third of the population. In his "Florentine Chronicle," Marchione di Coppo Stefani, born 1336, gives an account, adapted here, of the plague's impact on his native Florence.

Editor's note: The poet W.H. Auden (1907-1973) wrote "September 1, 1939" after the German invasion of Poland. He came to dislike the poem and refused to allow further publication of it during his lifetime, at one point denouncing the line, "We must love one another or die," as a "damned lie! We must die anyway." The poem reappeared in collections published after Auden's death, and it has been widely distributed on the Internet in the last month as readers have noted its relevance to the events of Sept. 11.

Editor's note: The poet Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), moved by the plight of Jews and other victims of persecution in Europe, wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883 and offered it as part of an exhibition to help raise funds for the pedestal that five years later would hold the Statue of Liberty.

Editor's note: John Brown (1800-1859), the militant abolitionist, led a raid in October 1859 on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va. His plan was to acquire arms to equip a slave insurrection. Marines, under the command of Col. Robert E. Lee, defeated Brown's raiding party; Brown was wounded and 10 of his men were killed. Although Brown was tried and executed, he remained a focus of fear in the South and of inspiration in the North. His attack on the arsenal has been described as a factor that inflamed passions on the slavery issue and helped bring about the Civil War. Following is

Editor's note: John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th president of the United States, visited West Berlin during a five-nation European tour in June 1963. The Berlin Wall, which encircled the Western part of the divided city, was still in its infancy, and Kennedy denounced it as a symbol of the failure of communism. His short speech is printed here in its entirety. Kennedy was assassinated five months later.

Editor's note: Among the most strident and violent of the voices in the French Revolution was that of Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793), a Swiss-born doctor-turned-journalist. Before his assassination by Charlotte Corday in 1793, who stabbed him in his bath, he lay much of the foundation for the Reign of Terror that followed. In this excerpted essay, written in 1774 during a stay in England, he sought to influence the election of a new Parliament. He wrote later that "I was anxious to contribute to the triumph of liberty in a country which seemed its last asylum. A Parliament notorious for its

Editor's note: Gen. Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805) was second in command of British forces in America during the final years of the Revolutionary War. He served in the British Army as a young man and later became a member of Parliament, where he opposed some of the policies that helped inspire the revolt in the American colonies. He returned to military duty when the war began and arrived in America in 1776. In 1781, Cornwallis commanded the British army trapped at Yorktown; surrounded on land by American and French troops, and blocked at sea by the French fleet, Cornwallis surrendered.

Editor's note: In 1984, having won the Democratic presidential nomination, former Vice President Walter Mondale selected Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-N.Y., 48, to be his running mate. She was the first woman nominated on the national ticket of a major party. Ferraro, a former teacher and assistant district attorney, was, Mondale assured the country, "an exciting choice." The following is adapted from her acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

Editor's note: Mao Zedong (1893-1976) led the Chinese Communist Party in its civil war against the Nationalists, or Kuomintang, which ended when Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan in 1949. Communists and Nationalists had made common cause to fight the Japanese during World War II, but attempts to build a postwar coalition failed, and their truce ended in 1946. Three years later, on Oct. 1, 1949, Mao stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square and declared the establishment of the People's Republic of China. This text is excerpted from an address given 10 days earlier.

Editor's note: Two years after the end of World War II, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced a far-reaching program for Europe's reconstruction. The Marshall Plan, as it came to be known, formed the basis of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948. This speech, in which he outlined the plan, is adapted from an address he delivered at Harvard University.

Editor's note: The Memorial Day tradition began with the following:

Editor's note: Before the Church Lady, there was Silence Dogood, a fictional widow whose essays appeared in the New-England Courant in 1722. The paper's editor, James Franklin, knew that Dogood was a pen name and understood that the letters were satire; what he did not know was that the author was his teenaged apprentice and brother, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Benjamin, who went on to become a famous writer, inventor and diplomat, got a kick out of slipping the Dogood letters under the office door and then watching his brother and his friends read them. "They read it, commented on it

Editor's note: Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882), an escaped slave from Maryland, was a Presbyterian minister in New York state and frequent lecturer on behalf of the Anti-Slavery Society. The society repudiated Garnet after his "Call to Rebellion," delivered to the National Negro Convention in Buffalo, N.Y., in August 1843. That speech, excerpted here, drew a rebuttal from Frederick Douglass. Garnet went on to serve parishes in Jamaica and Washington, D.C., and preached a sermon before the U.S. House of Representatives.

Editor's note: As president, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) tried from the outset of World War I to keep the United States from being drawn into the European conflict. He urged Americans to remain neutral "in thought as well as in action." But the German use of submarines to interdict shipping in the North Atlantic made Wilson's position increasingly untenable; more than 100 Americans were among those who died when a German sub torpedoed the British liner Lusitania in 1915. The situation eased after Germany promised not to attack passenger ships, but a series of events in 1917 heightened ten

Editor's note: Angelina Grimke Weld (1806-1879), daughter of a slave-owning judge in the South, became an outspoken advocate for abolition and women's suffrage after moving to Philadelphia with her sister, Sarah Grimke, in the 1820s. The sisters were harshly criticized for their views, although they drew large and supportive crowds at their public lectures. The following text is excerpted from a lecture Angelina delivered at Pennsylvania Hall while an angry mob gathered outside. She kept speaking even as those outside hurled rocks through the building's windows.

Editor's note: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), leader of the Communist revolution in Russia and first premier of the Soviet Union, spent much of World War I in exile. By the spring of 1917, Czar Nicholas II had been forced to abdicate, but was replaced by a government that continued to honor Russia's obligations to its allies. Lenin, believing that armed conflict was the inevitable product of capitalism, wrote his "Appeal to the Soldiers of All the Belligerent Countries" in an attempt to turn soldiers against the war.

Editor's note: Henry W. Grady (1850-89), a journalist and orator, made his reputation in the years following the Civil War as a spokesman for what he called the New South, a place where the races had learned to live and work together. In fact, he supported segregation in education and other spheres. As a part owner, reporter and editor of the Atlanta Constitution, he became a popular writer, and is seen as among the most influential figures in Atlanta's history. This text is excerpted from a speech to the New England Society of New York. (The final quote comes from Shakespeare's "

Editor's note: In Act III of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," Mark Antony faces a crowd of plebeians who have just heard Brutus justify Caesar's assassination. Brutus has won the people over by telling them that Caesar had been too ambitious, that his death was necessary to prevent the enslavement of the people of Rome. With the people clamoring for Brutus to take Caesar's place as leader, he leaves, generously insisting that Caesar's friend Antony be allowed to offer a eulogy. By the time Antony has finished speaking, the crowd has turned into a mob, lusting for revenge against Br

Editor's note: St. Augustine (354-430), rhetorician, theologian and bishop of Hippo in what is now Algeria, was a powerful voice in some of the most divisive doctrinal struggles of the early church. At first attracted to other philosophies, Augustine became acquainted with St. Ambrose during a stay in Milan, renewing a former interest in Christianity. In the following excerpts from Book VIII of his "Confessions," Augustine describes his reluctance to turn away from wordly pleasures and his final conversion to Christian life.

Editor's note: Maria W. Stewart (1803-1879) was among the first American black women to write for publication or to deliver a public address. Born in Connecticut, Stewart became an orphan at age 5 and spent her youth working as a domestic servant. Her three-year marriage ended when her husband died and she was cheated out of his estate. In the course of the first few years after her husband's death, she published pamphlets, gave lectures and wrote newspaper articles on issues related to slavery, women's rights and the campaign to return blacks to Africa, which she opposed. After the Civi

Editor's note: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was an accomplished poet and satirist who wrote extensively about her experiences abroad as wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. After arriving in Turkey in 1717, she observed a rudimentary form of smallpox inoculation that conferred immunity against the dreaded disease. She was so enthusiastic about the procedure that she had it performed upon both of her children and undertook to spread word about it to her native England, as in this excerpt from a letter to a friend back home. During the 18th century, an estimated 1

Editor's note: C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), classical scholar, author and educator, had no theological training, but is known as one of the 20th century's most influential Christian voices. In books, lectures and British radio broadcasts, he explored Christian themes for wide audiences; he is best known today for his series of allegorical "Narnia" tales for young people. In 1944, during his tenure as a professor at Magdalen College, Oxford, he delivered a memorial oration at King's College, the University of London. His speech is excerpted here. Our thanks to reader Jack Streed, a longtime En

Editor's note: Ambrose Bierce (born 1842; believed to have died in 1914), a Union Army veteran of the Civil War, was an author and journalist who spent part of his career working for William Randolph Hearst. His sharp-witted cynicism won him the nickname "Bitter Bierce." "Death is not the end," he once observed; "there remains litigation over the estate." His death is mysterious; in 1913 he went to Mexico, hoping to witness its revolution, and was never heard from again. He had written to a niece that he thought being shot would beat other ways to die: "To be a Gringo in Mexico -- ah, th

Editor's note: Thomas Paine (1737-1809), writer and editor, was a soldier in Gen. George Washington's army when he wrote the essay excerpted here. Washington is said to have ordered it read to his troops before they crossed the Delaware River on Dec. 25-26, 1776, to attack the British and Hessians at Trenton. The essay, the first in a series Paine called "The American Crisis," is considered to have helped rally popular support for the War of Independence.