"God has had mercy upon us, though we have committed monstrous sins against each other as well as against the world. God has brought us to this day, (in the story, America has just re-won its freedom after a long dictatorship) though we are not worthy of it. For many years, He has stimulated the hearts and the souls of a few free and just men, who have worked among you, unknown to you. He gave them a lash with which to arouse you. He gave them words to awaken you. He gave them courage to deliver up their lives for you, though you were not worthy of it. You betrayed them to your oppressors and your tyrants, but still they loved you. You called them 'traitors' and 'subversives,' when they cried out to you that the walls of your nation were tumbling into the seas of tyranny and death. When they warned you on the day religion was turned against religion, and race against race, in America, you laughed at them and denounced them as 'dividers of the country.' When they cried to you that States Rights were being abrogated, you shouted 'Unity!' at them, and beat them down, and silenced them. When they exposed the causes of wars to you, and the plot against you in those wars, you jeered at them with such epithets as 'isolationists' or 'pacifists.' While you still had a measure of liberty and could vote vile tyrants and corrupt men out of office, you listened, instead, to the promises of those men, and you voted honorable and decent men out of office." -- Taylor Caldwell, "The Devil's Advocate"